Identifying potential community barriers for accessing health care services context to health for all in rural-tribal geographical setting in India: A systematic review

Abstract

This review article focuses on community barriers among tribes living in different parts of rural regions in India and placed to find out the possible resolution/passion. The access to health care services has a very low coverage in rural region of the country especially in tribal communities. A systematic search was covered since last two decades from 2000 to 2020 of articles were extracted from Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, JSTOR, WHO portal, Research Gate, Census 2011, etc. The health indicators of tribes were originated alarming status quo as widely held malnourished and sufferer from different disease and illness. Findings towards accessing quality health care services revealed that difficult geographical situation, communication in own language, financial constraint, low level of education, illiteracy, approaching traditional medicine and ancient culture as community barriers were remained constant. Low level of education, strong cultural believes and traditional culture norms are the strongest community barriers reflected their self-decision-making for not accessing the modern health care facility. An approach as creating effective awareness in harmonic way could be useful for bridging the gaps by involving existing medical resources and staffs, which can play a critical role in reducing the barriers. Thus, review findings suggest the need for implementing awareness programs can divert towards quality health care and thereby can “connect the unconnected” to stay healthy.