An Analysis On Influential Factors Of Reproductive Health Among Low-income Women In Beijing

As a special group, urban low income women are different fromother women in the city, due to their restricted finance, distinct socialstatus, awareness of health, cognition and behavior, which render themvulnerable in reproductive health. Their problem of reproductive healthhas been concerned about by authorities. As one of major problems inreproductive health, the incidence of reproductive tract infectionsreflect directly the level of reproductive health of population. This paperfocuses on urban low-income women, with the aim of looking at theirreproductive health, related knowledge, health care seeking behavior andneeds. Based on the analysis of possible factors which would affect theirreproductive health, strategies and implications are proposed to improvereproductive health of the target group. According to the cross-sectionaldesign, questionnaire interviews were conducted with1018urbanlow-income women who lived in Haidian district of Beijing.The statistics indicate that the majority of the subjects of researchwere aged45and above (more than50%), Han ethnic group, at the levelof high school education (2/3), and with average family monthly incomelower than800(close to a half). The major RTI symptoms includedvulvae itching, abnormal vaginal secretion and lower abdominal pain atnon-menstruation; the rate of seeking healthcare because of RTIsymptoms was low. The RTI knowledge rate was relatively low with aminority of women’s misconceptions about RTI. The single factor analysis demonstrates that age, ethnicity, education and marriage wasstatistically related to self-reported RTI rate. Younger women intended toreport RTI than elderly ones. The RTI self-report rate for the ethnic groupwas much higher than that of Han group. There was a growing trend ofRTI self-report rate by education level. The RTI self-report rate forwidowed women remained the lowest whereas that for those whocohabited was the highest. The binary logistic regression shows that incomparison with45-year olds and above, younger groups had the higherself-report rates, particularly30-year olds and below. Comparing withthose who had first sex at30or above, women whose first sex at20orbelow were more likely to report RTI. Women with pregnant history weremore likely to report RTI than those without, particularly those who hadbeen pregnant for three times.The main findings include: reproductive tract infections inlow-income women proved to be a problem; this group of women lackedrelevant knowledge, were insufficiently aware of reproductive health andself care, and underutilized healthcare services; some health-relatedbehaviors among these women may put them at risk of contractingreproductive tract infections; there were enormous needs forcorresponding information and services.