Why Do Women Delay in Seeking Prenatal Care? A Discrete-Time Survival Analysis

Abstract

This paper evaluates the effect of access to the Ghana national health insurance on the timing of the first prenatal care visit for pregnant women after controlling for other factors. Due to the voluntary nature of the national health insurance program, insurance status is likely endogenous, this paper therefore uses the Multilevel Multiprocess (MLMP) model and the Mixed Proportional Hazard (MPH) model estimation techniques, which controls for endogeneity in survival data analysis. Results from the estimation shows that access to insurance reduces the delays in receiving prenatal care, and increases the probability of seeking prenatal care.