Assessing the Urban-Rural differentials in Maternal Health Care Services by Constructing Maternal Health Care Index: A District-Level Analysis of Madhya Pradesh, India

The present study comes out with the urban-rural differentials in maternal health care services in the districts of Madhya Pradesh. Third round of District Level Household and Facility Survey has been used for the study. A Maternal Health Care Index (MHCI) is constructed to measure degree of health care services utilised by women during childbirth. Result reveals that Indore district tops the list in MP with 0.5671 in MHCI, followed by Ujjain (0.4727) and Hoshangabad (0.4617). Dindori district is in bottom of the list with only 0.1104 MHCI followed by Sidhi (0.1609) and Raisen (0.2116). In rural Madhya Pradesh, not a single district is touching even MHCI of 0.5 points. Among all the 45 districts, Shajapur district is in top of the list with MHCI of 0.427. Dindori district is in bottom most in the list with only 0.0983 MHCI. Though the MHC Indices are higher in urban area as compare to rural yet their overall performance are not so attractive. Even the disparity between highest and lowest district is very high. Hoshangabad district is in 1st rank with MHCI of 0.6801. Among the worst performing districts, Sidhi district is leading with MHCI of only 0.0966 followed by Tikamgarh and Raisen.