Evaluation of Self-Reported Population Health Status in Burji District, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Health status of a population can be influenced by social, economic, environmental and behavioral factors of individuals. Without taking into account the existing gap of health status of a population, public health interventions will have limited impact on improvement of the health status of a population. Although there are studies on disease morbidities and mortalities in Ethiopia, there is lack of data showing self reported/perceived health status of the population mainly in our study setting. The objective of the research is to evaluate self- reported population health status in Burji district in southern nations nationalities and populations of Ethiopia. Community based cross sectional study was employed in the district on sample size of 845 adult individuals with multistage and systemic sampling methods. The tool to measure health status was the short form thirty-six health survey questionnaire (3SF- 36) containing 36 questions. Data were analyzed using SPSS window version 20.0 and Principal component analysis (PCA) method was used to summarize the population health status in to different extracts or dimensions. Five hundred three (60.5%) of the respondents were females and the mean age of the study participants was 35.9 (SD ± 9.8) years and majority of them were housewives and farmers. About half of the respondents get drinking water from unsafe sources (surface water, river, unprotected well and spring). About 40.0% of the respondents have no any type of latrine in their compound and Sixty-six (9.9%) of them were suffering with an acute illness within the past two weeks. Half of the respondents who reported to experience an acute illness did not seek any form of modern medical care. Regarding to Self-reported population health status, two basic summary components that can explain the self-reported population health status were identified. The two components/ constructs identified were Physical component summary and mental component summary (PCS and MCS). The mean scores for perceived self-reported population health status was below 50% which indicate poor population health status in all dimensions of population health status in the district. The population in Burji district has poor access to safe living environment and facilities such housing, latrine coverage, safe drinking water, electricity and media. The PCA analysis of Self-reported population health status in the district explained two main constructs (physical and mental).