Social determinants of health in rural Indian women & effects on intervention participation

The social determinants of health have become an increasingly crucial public health topic in recent years and refer to the non-medical factors that affect an individual’s health outcomes. Our study focuses on understanding the various social and personal determinants of health that most affect women’s wellbeing. We surveyed 229 rural Indian women through the deployment of trained community healthcare workers to understand their reasons for not participating in a public health intervention aimed to improve their maternal outcomes. We found that the most frequent reasons cited by the women were: lack of husband support (53.2%), lack of family support (27.9%), not having enough time (17.0%), and having a migratory lifestyle (14.8%). We also found association between the determinants: women who had lower education levels, were primigravida, younger, or lived in joint families were more likely to cite a lack of husband or family support. We determined through these results that a lack of social (both spousal and familial) support, time, and stable housing were the most pressing determinants of health preventing the women from maximizing their health outcomes. Future research should focus on possible programs to equalize the negative effects of these social determinants to improve the healthcare access of rural women.