What Determines Institutional Delivery in Rural Uttar Pradesh, India?

Neelanjana Pandey, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Faujdar Ram, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This study examines the association of individual and community-level characteristics with the choice of delivery location (home, public or private facility) for the most recent live birth of currently married women in Rural Uttar Pradesh, India. District Level Household Survey-Reproductive and Child Health Survey (DLHS-RCH, 2007-08) data on 30,856 currently married women belonging to 2827 villages in Uttar Pradesh, is used to assess effect of the village infrastructure and availability of public health services on choice of delivery location. Anderson Behavioural Model of health service use has been utilized through Multinomial Logistic regression analyses. Result indicates that other than usual individual risk factors, presence of government health facility, distance to nearest primary health centre and functioning of maternity benefit schemes in the villages has significant impact on choice of delivery location, where as presence of village health worker may not found to be associated with institutional delivery.