https://doi.org/10.4081/hls.2025.13433
Insights into gender-equity in healthcare accessibility in Northern Nigeria: descriptive and predictive approaches
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Published: 9 July 2025
Universal Health Coverage (UHC) aims at ensuring equitable access to healthcare for everyone, irrespective of gender, location, or financial status. Though progress has been made in achieving UHC, a lot remains to be done in under-served areas of the world. These regions face immense challenges accessing healthcare services, including unavailability of basic medications, socio-cultural and religious beliefs, and various forms of discrimination. Beyond these, women are still severely disadvantaged in these regions, with child brides and teenage pregnancy being prevalent. This work analysed data from regions of northern Nigeria to determine equity in healthcare accessibility. Descriptive analysis (using correlation models) and predictive analysis (using machine learning models) were carried out. The descriptive analysis revealed that women with low income and education levels, and the elderly have a higher chance of accessing healthcare services compared to other genders, while the predictive analysis revealed that, using machine learning, accessibility to healthcare services can be predicted with up to 81% accuracy.
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