ArticlePLOS global public health2024
The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare seeking in an urban informal settlement in Nairobi and a rural setting in western Kenya.
Article in PLOS global public health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assessing the impact of climate and control interventions on spatio-temporal malaria dynamics using a stochastic metapopulation model.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Trend of Bloody Diarrhea in Kerman Province, Iran: A Time Series Study From 2013 to 2023.The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology = Journal canadien des maladies infectieuses et de la microbiologie medicale · 2026Article
- COVID-19 impact on retinal detachment in Germany: seasonal peaks persist and shifts in surgical trends.International ophthalmology · 2025Observational
- Forecasting malaria dynamics based on causal relations between control interventions, climatic factors, and disease incidence in western Kenya.Journal of global health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread changes and disruptions to healthcare seeking behavior. There are limited studies on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare seeking patterns in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), especially in settings with inequitable access to healthcare in rural and urban informal settlements. We investigated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on reported healthcare seeking at health facilities and chemists using morbidity data from participants in an ongoing population-based infectious disease surveillance platform in Asembo in Siaya County, a rural setting in western Kenya and Kibera, an urban informal settlement in Nairobi County. We described healthcare seeking patterns before (from 1st January 2016 to 12th March 2020) and during the pandemic (from 13th March 2020 to 31st August 2022) by gender and age for any reported illness and select clinical syndromes using frequencies and percentages. We used a generalized estimating equation with an exchangeable correlation structure to assess the effect of the pandemic on healthcare seeking adjusting for gender and age. Overall, there was a 19% (adjusted odds ratio, aOR: 0.81; 95% Confidence Interval, CI: 0.79-0.83) decline in odds of seeking healthcare at health facilities for any illness in Asembo during the pandemic, and a 30% (aOR: 0.70; 95% CI: 0.67-0.73) decline in Kibera. Similarly, there was a decline in seeking healthcare by clinical syndromes, e.g., for ARI, aOR: 0.76; 95% CI:0.73-0.79 in Asembo, and aOR: 0.68; 95% CI:0.64-0.72 in Kibera. The pandemic resulted in increased healthcare seeking at chemists (aOR: 1.23; 95% CI: 1.20-1.27 in Asembo, and aOR: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.35-1.46 in Kibera). This study highlights interruptions to healthcare seeking in resource-limited settings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic resulted in a substantial decline in seeking care at health facilities, and an increase of the same at chemists.
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