Health care awareness as important as access, affordability in impoverished communities

CHICAGO, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- While not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) try to provide health care in underserved communities by building up funds, researchers conclude in a paper released on the website of University of Illinois (UI) Wednesday that there are other critical issues that need to be addressed, health care awareness.

During a study between 1998 and 2008 in northern China, the researchers found that the incidence rate of congenital heart disease in Gansu province was six times China's national average, and that an NPO's efforts related to provider awareness and physical access strengthen the positive association between efforts to improve access to surgery and the volume of surgeries.

"It turns out that the most critical issue for an NPO is working on community awareness," said Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee, a professor of business administration at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois (UI).

The first step was to build awareness among doctors and nurses, "because they were not cognizant of what was happening, that a lack of awareness among patients was leading to fewer surgeries," Mukherjee said.

The second step was to build awareness among local community members.

"Even experienced NGO workers would make the mistake of assuming that impoverished people are like rich people with less money," Mukherjee said. "There's a huge gap in awareness. In these types of regions where the patients are impoverished and uneducated, most times, patients would arrive at a stage when it was too late for their child to be helped."

"The interaction of affordability and awareness is critical. One should be working toward affordability, but unless there's a parallel effort to build awareness, people will not reap the benefits. More money won't necessarily help more people," he added

The research has been published in the journal Production and Operations Management. Enditem