Ethnic Disparities in Prenatal Care Utilization in Vietnam

Ha N. Trinh, University of Utah
Kim Korinek, University of Utah

Prenatal care, credited as lowering fetal and infant mortality and leading to the birth of healthier babies, has shown improvements in the developing world but has indicated disparities between racial/ethnic groups. We employed the Demographic and Health Survey 2002 to examine ethnic disparities in prenatal care utilization in Vietnam controlling for age, education, employment and region. Our findings from 1,221 women at the age of reproduction given birth in three year prior to the survey suggested that ethnic minority women were only 45% as likely as majority women to have three or more prenatal care visits, and only 25% as likely as majority women to receive professional care. Our hypothesis that minority women are less likely than majority women to receive prenatal care in the first trimester was not supported. Attending to other covariates, education and region show significant effects on prenatal care utilization.