Demographic and Health Characteristics of Two Populations in Basrah

Abstract

Background: Measurement of population health is important means to identify a given health status indicators and indicators of the effects of health programmes. Objectives: To measure selected health indicators of the catchment population of two primary health care centres and to support data base for the purpose of better care provision and to compare pattern between urban and rural communities. Methods: A cross-sectional survey involving 557 families (3785 individuals) from two primary health care centres catchment population, namely: Al-Zuwain Village in northern part of Basrah governorate and Hay Al-Muhandisin in Basrah city centre. Results: The main findings were the similarity of age pattern in both populations and the very sharp decline in population share as age advanced. The percent of married persons was high in Al-Zuwain compared to Al-Muhandisin population. Acute illness episodes were equally reported in both population with some variation in some individual disease entities. The use of preventive care was very acceptable and comparable in both populations. The local primary health centre was the main source of curative care in Al-Zuwain but not in Al-Muhandisin population. Conclusions: Household surveys represent a good source of additional information on various aspect of population, they are feasible and of multipurpose approaches to data acquisition. In this study, The overall pattern of services utilization is similar in rural and urban population with few exceptions. However the pattern of morbidity and use of curative care is different.