Policy Literacy, Barriers, and Gender Impact on Accessibility to Healthcare Services under Compulsory Migrant Health Insurance among Myanmar Migrant Workers in Thailand

Abstract EN

Accessibility to health service and experience of healthcare are important factors for public health policymaking.

The current study aimed to describe the status of accessibility and barriers to getting care as well as policy literacy among Myanmar migrant workers and ultimately to identify the predictors of accessibility to healthcare services among this population through Thailand’s Compulsory Migrant Health Insurance (CMHI).

A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 240 Myanmar migrant workers who were 18 years or older, resided in Songkhla Province, and had Compulsory Migrant Health Insurance.

The instrument was a set of questionnaires consisting of a Personal Data Form, Policy Literacy Questionnaire, Barriers to Get Care Questionnaire, and Accessibility to Healthcare Services Questionnaire.

Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze data.

The majority of participants had a high level of policy literacy (36.3%), barriers to get care (34.2%), and accessibility to health care services (35.8%).

Policy literacy (β = 0.35, p<0.001), barriers to get care (β = −0.32, p<0.001), and gender (p<0.001) were significant predictors of accessibility to healthcare services and could explain 43.2% of the total variance.

To increase the accessibility to healthcare services among migrant workers with Compulsory Migrant Health Insurance, public health policymakers are recommended to cooperate more with healthcare staff and the workers’ employers to enhance the distribution of information about the health insurance to decrease barriers to get care.