The Influence of Individual and Contextual Socioeconomic Status on Obstetric Care Utilization in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Population-based Study

Background: maternal health care utilization continues to focuson the agenda of health care planners around the world, with highattention being paid to the developing countries. the devastatingeffect of maternal death at birth on the affected families is untold.this study examines the utilization of obstetric care in the democraticrepublic of congo. we have used the nationally representative datafrom the 2007.methods: democratic republic of congo demographic andhealth survey. multilevel regression analysis has been applied to anationally representative sample of 6,695 women, clustered around299 communities in the country.results: the results show that there are variations in the use ofantenatal care and delivery care. individual?level characteristics, suchas women’s occupation and household wealth status are shown to beassociated with the use of antenatal care. uptake of facility?baseddelivery has been seen to be dependent on the household wealthstatus, women’s education, and partner’s education. the effect ofthe neighborhoods’ socioeconomic disadvantage on the use ofantenatal care and facility?based delivery are the same. women fromhighly socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, comparedto their counterparts from less socioeconomically disadvantagedneighborhoods, are less likely to utilize both the antenatal servicesand healthcare facility for child delivery. the result of this study hasshown that both individual and contextual socioeconomic status playan important role in obstetric care uptake.conclusion: thus, intervention aimed at improving the utilizationof obstetrics care should target both the individual economic abilitiesof the women and that of their environment when considering thedemand side.