Ninth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine health insurance coverage as a health seeking behaviour, of Jamaican women and to ascertain the socio-economic determinants of their health seeking behaviour and to make policy recommendations for socio-economic issues that might come from study. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with data from 1838 Jamaican women extracted from a household survey conducted among 5155 respondents. Descriptive statistics were used to provide background information on the demographic characteristics of the sample and multiple variate regressions were employed to establish the relationship between the selected socio-economic determinants and health seeking behaviour. The data used was obtained from the 2015 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions and some variables were reclassified to properly interpret the data of the models. The probit model was employed to analyse the selected variables. The results show that health seeking behaviour, specifically insurance coverage, is determined by social class, health and education amoung other socio-economic determinants. The policy suggestions are for the government to implement more socio-economic programmes that not only provides general insurance and health care accessibility to women but also programmes which help to promote reproductive care, health social activities and dietary practices.