Impact of Women’s Self-Help Groups on Health Literacy and Empowerment in Rural Wardha, India

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of community medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sewagram, Wardha, India

2 National Health System Resource Centre, New Delhi, India

3 Department of Community Medicine, Tagore Medical college and Hospital, Chennai, India

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Women empowerment and health literacy are very important concepts in societal development and improvement of health status of the community. We aimed to assess the effect of women’s self-help group (SHG) membership on health literacy and women empowerment.

Materials and Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study using quantitative method and PLA tool. Semi-structured questionnaire-based survey was conducted with randomly selected 180 SHG and non-SHG women each. 3 gender resource mapping activities were also conducted with both the groups. Ordinal and logistic regression analysis was performed to study the determinants of health literacy and women empowerment respectively.

Results: Overall, 65% and 20% SHG and non-SHG women respectively had sufficient health literacy. The proportion with excellent health literacy was very poor (1% and 0% respectively). The overall women empowerment index was 0.376 (0.548 in SHG and 0.208 in non-SHG women). SHG women had higher odds of being empowered [aOR=1.18 (1.09-1.30)] and about 8 times higher odds of having better health literacy [aOR=8.70 (5.24-14.79)]. Belonging to open and scheduled caste [aOR=0.81 (0.66-0.99) and 1.19 (1.07-1.34) respectively], having sufficient/excellent health literacy [aOR=1.20 (1.02-1.42)] were other significant determinants of women empowerment. Age [aOR=0.96 (0.94-0.98)], belonging to Scheduled tribe [aOR=0.47 (0.22-0.97)], having standard of living index class 3 [aOR=3.42 (1.29-9.11)] were other significant determinants of health literacy among women. Mostly, men had better access and control of resources i.e. basic needs and assets of day-to-day living. Women from both groups had better access and control over clothes, jewellery and their own earnings. In addition, SHG women had equal or better control over household stuffs, education, food than their spouses. 

Conclusion: Further promoting such groups and understanding of the group dynamics may help in enhancing health literacy and women empowerment in addition to overall efforts of improving these in the community as a whole.
Keywords: Community-Based Organizations, Gender, Gender Resource Mapping, Health Promotion, Household Resources .
 

Keywords

Acknowledgements: The authors acknowledge the contributions of Dr Ruchita Khandre, Dr Nikhilesh Nagtode, Dr Pranit Patil, Dr Trupti Chavhan and social workers of the department for their help during data collection.


Availability of data and materials: The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in figshare at http://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27255927 .


Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing interest.


Consent for publication: Written informed consent for publication of their details was obtained from the study participants.


Ethics approval and consent to participate: Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee of MGIMS, Sewagram. Written informed consent was obtained from all the respondents of quantitative survey and participants of gender resource mapping. All the study procedures were carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.


Funding: Nil.


Authors' Contributions: The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: Study conception and design: BSG, SSG, AR. Data collection: AM, AJ, AD, RK, RS, SK. Analysis and interpretation of results: AM, AR, RK, RS. Draft manuscript preparation: AM, RK. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

 

Open Access Policy: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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