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AWARENESS, ACCESS AND UTILIZATION OF INFORMATION AMONG PRIMARY HEALTH CARE PRACTITIONERS IN RURAL AREAS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the Study

Good health is fundamental to improved quality of life, and the goal of promoting the health of rural community dwellers in Nigeria is critical in improving the quality of life of a vast majority of Nigerians who reside in rural communities. A new approach is needed in delivery of primary health care (PHC) in Nigeria. To propagate the primary health care initiative declared at Alma Alta, the principles of Ottawa charter on health promotion can be brought to bear in the push for a paradigm shift in rural health care delivery. Interventions to reduce the burden of disease and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa increasingly recognize the importance of drug retailers in delivering basic healthcare services. (Beyeler et al., 2015). In Nigeria, owner-operated drug retail outlets, known as patent and proprietary medicine vendors (PPMVs), are a main source of medicines for acute conditions (NPHCDA, 2011). PPMVs are a particularly important source of care in rural and lower income communities (Onwujekwe et al., 2011), and National surveys show that PPMVs are the first source of care for between 8% and 55% of illnesses occurring among children under five (NPC, 2012).

A lot of mortalities in sub-Saharan Africa are due to poor access to timely and quality health care interventions which are preventable using low-cost public health interventions (Jones et al., 2003; Grais et al., 2007; Adedini et al., 2014). Health care utilization is limited in sub-Saharan Africa for many reasons and a major barrier to health care utilization is the long distance to health care facilities (Thaddeus and Maine, 1994; Frankenberg, 1995; Amooti-Kaguna and Nuwaha, 2000; Kadobera et al., 2012; Adedini et al., 2014).

Other problems with accessibility to care include evaluation of the adequacy of the numbers of healthcare facilities and the proper distribution of these facilities to

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