Health Status and Health Seeking Behavior of Street Children in Dhaka City of Bangladesh

Street children, a marginal and neglected population of Bangladesh are deprived of their very basic entitlements of food, shelter, education and medical care. A cross-sectional study was conducted to explore the health status... [ view full abstract ]

Street children, a marginal and neglected population of Bangladesh are deprived of their very basic entitlements of food, shelter, education and medical care. A cross-sectional study was conducted to explore the health status and health seeking behavior of the street children of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. A total of 214 street children were randomly enrolled in this survey. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for collecting data from children aged 6 to 11 years. Data collection was done between September and October, 2013.
The study showed that only 8.4% of the respondents had balanced diet in their menu in the last 24 hours prior to survey. The prevalence of underweight among surveyed children was 16.8% (<-2 z-score). Around 29% of the children had experienced injury/accident of any kind in last one year. Almost all of the children (99.1%) had been found to be suffering from some ailments. Common cold (97.7%) and fever (78.0%) were common among children followed by stomachache (55.6%), diarrhea (40.2%), and headache (31.3%). Among the sick, 70.6% received medical services. Most of the respondents sought their treatment from local drug seller (62.3%), this was followed by traditional healers (15.9%) and street vendors (11.9%). 77.1% of children mentioned that treatment cost was borne by their family members while 22.9% mentioned that it was borne by them. Among treatment seekers,74.2% children mentioned that providers did not want to give them services. 27.0% of the respondents mentioned that they could not seek treatment owing to lack of money.
Street children’s health care is extremely ignored and unrecognized. They have very limited access to formal health care services due to poverty, lack of information and social barriers. A concerted effort should be taken to address the health needs of street children.