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Impact of Women's Health Information Centres on Women's Preventive Healthcare Utilization in Nigeria

Abstract

Women's preventive healthcare utilization is essential for the early detection and prevention of diseases and the promotion of healthy living throughout the life course. Women in Nigeria may experience barriers to preventive healthcare utilization, including inadequate health information, limited awareness of available services, financial constraints, geographical inaccessibility, cultural beliefs, fear of diagnosis, and limited knowledge about when and where to obtain preventive healthcare. Women's health information centres can provide accessible and reliable health information, counselling, service navigation, referrals, and education on preventive healthcare services. By improving women's knowledge and connecting them with appropriate healthcare providers, such centres may encourage greater utilization of preventive services such as health screening, reproductive health services, cancer screening, immunization, and assessment of chronic disease risk factors. Against this background, this study investigates the impact of women's health information centres on women's preventive healthcare utilization in Nigeria. The study will be anchored on the Andersen Behavioral Model of Health Services Use, Health Belief Model, and Social Ecological Model. Andersen's Behavioral Model explains how women's predisposing characteristics, enabling resources, and perceived healthcare needs influence their utilization of preventive healthcare services. The Health Belief Model explains how perceptions of susceptibility to disease, perceived severity, perceived benefits of preventive healthcare, perceived barriers, and cues to action may influence women's decisions to utilize available services. The Social Ecological Model emphasizes the interaction between individual, interpersonal, community, healthcare-system, and broader societal factors in shaping access to and utilization of preventive healthcare. Collectively, these theoretical perspectives provide a suitable framework for explaining how women's health information centres may influence preventive healthcare utilization in Nigeria. The study will adopt a quantitative quasi-experimental or analytical cross-sectional research design. The study population will comprise women of reproductive and older age groups accessing selected communities, women's health information centres, primary healthcare centres, hospitals, workplaces, educational institutions, and community organizations across Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique will be used to select states, local government areas, communities, health information centres, healthcare facilities, and eligible women. Women's health information centres will be assessed using indicators such as availability, accessibility, operating hours, range of information services, health education, individual counselling, service-navigation assistance, referral services, availability of trained personnel, information materials, communication channels, and follow-up support. Preventive healthcare utilization will be assessed using indicators such as attendance for routine health checks, blood pressure screening, blood glucose screening, cancer screening, reproductive health services, immunization, nutritional assessment, preventive counselling, and utilization of recommended healthcare services appropriate to women's age and health needs. Data will be collected using structured questionnaires, centre attendance records, referral registers, healthcare utilization records, screening registers, and relevant programme documents. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize participants' characteristics, exposure to women's health information centres, and patterns of preventive healthcare utilization. Inferential statistical techniques, including chi-square tests, t-tests, correlation analysis, and logistic or multiple regression analysis where appropriate, will be used to determine the impact of women's health information centres on preventive healthcare utilization. Where a quasi-experimental design is adopted, utilization levels before and after introduction or increased access to health information centre services may be compared to determine changes associated with the intervention. Diagnostic tests will also be conducted to assess the reliability, validity, and robustness of the findings. The study is expected to find that women's health information centres have a significant positive impact on preventive healthcare utilization among women in Nigeria. Women who have access to reliable health information, individualized counselling, service-navigation assistance, and referral support are expected to demonstrate greater utilization of appropriate preventive healthcare services than women with limited access to such resources. Health information centres may improve women's awareness of available services, clarify eligibility and recommended screening schedules, reduce misinformation, and encourage timely healthcare-seeking. Referral and follow-up support may further improve continuity between information services and actual healthcare utilization. However, financial constraints, geographical barriers, limited availability of preventive services, cultural beliefs, fear of diagnosis, inadequate staffing, and weak referral networks may reduce the effectiveness of women's health information centres. The study therefore expects accessible, confidential, reliable, culturally appropriate, and well-integrated women's health information services to contribute significantly to improved preventive healthcare utilization in Nigeria. The study is expected to contribute to the literature on women's health information centres, preventive healthcare utilization, health information, health education, healthcare-seeking behaviour, women's health, disease prevention, health promotion, and public health in Nigeria. The findings will provide useful information to the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, state ministries of health, primary healthcare centres, hospitals, women's health organizations, community health workers, development partners, and policymakers regarding strategies for improving women's access to preventive healthcare. The study will also provide evidence-based recommendations for establishing and strengthening women's health information centres, improving health information accessibility, training health-information personnel, integrating information centres with primary healthcare and referral systems, expanding community-based health education, and promoting timely utilization of appropriate preventive healthcare services among women across Nigeria.

Keywords: Women's health information centres, preventive healthcare utilization, health information, health education, healthcare-seeking behaviour, disease prevention, health screening, women's health, health promotion, preventive services, Nigeria, public health.