Equity of inpatient health care in rural Tanzania: a population- and facility-based survey

Table 3 Wealth distribution of inpatients at four rural health centers in Kigoma, Tanzania over three months¹ (n = 2575 ²)

	Community population (n = 1205)		All inpatients (n = 2575)		Pediatric inpatients ³, * (n = 483)		Obstetric inpatients ⁴ (n = 1002)		Other adult inpatients* (n = 806)		Fee-exempt inpatients* (n = 1238)
	N	(%)	n	(%)	n	(%)	n	(%)	n	(%)	n	(%)
most poor	236	(19.6)	393	(15.3)	82	(17.0)	95	(11.6)	135	(16.8)	181	(14.6)
very poor	246	(20.4)	505	(19.6)	97	(20.1)	182	(22.1)	145	(18.0)	266	(21.5)
poor	236	(19.6)	425	(16.5)	99	(20.5)	129	(15.7)	108	(13.4)	217	(17.5)
less poor	246	(20.4)	487	(18.9)	92	(19.1)	160	(19.5)	142	(17.6)	238	(19.2)
least poor	241	(20.0)	765	(29.7)	113	(23.4)	256	(31.1)	276	(34.2)	336	(27.1)
Concentration index			0.1128		0.0472		0.1460		0.1385		0.0911
Chi-square of lowest two quintiles to highest two quintiles			< 0.0001		0.0874		< 0.0001		< 0.0001		< 0.0001
Wilcoxon rank sum, community population			< 0.0001		0.2242		< 0.0001		< 0.0001		0.0001

*Data for health center Bitale was omitted because one interviewer recorded the age of the parent instead of the child for pediatric admissions
¹ Data was collected in May 2008, September 2008, January 2009, and May 2009.
² Inpatients with more than one asset response missing were excluded from this analysis. For those with only one asset missing, the missing asset was imputed as described in methods, above.
³ Inpatients classified as pediatric inpatients were under the age of 5 and were not admitted for obstetric conditions.
⁴ Inpatients classified as obstetric inpatients were admitted for delivery, post-delivery complications, or post-abortion complications.

ISSN: 1475-9276