Quality and Utilization of Services of Intervention Program of Child Health: An Econometric Analysis

Despite its more than three decades of existence, the limited success of the ICDS Scheme—India’s primary response to early childhood care and development, in achieving its key objectives of addressing child malnutrition, morbidity and mortality is still being debated among the policy makers, social researchers, academics and program managers. Evidence show that low levels of participation and utilization of ICDS services by the community, are some of key factors to achieve the program goals. In this context, the quality of ICDS service delivery has been much talked about. Yet, there have not been many attempts at defining or measuring this aspect or studying the effects of quality on registration and utilization of ICDS services. It could be argued that improving the quality and accessibility to health and nutrition services is a potential mean to improve utilization and thereby improve health and nutrition status of children. Using a large household survey and AWC service-availability data, this paper attempts to define quality of ICDS services and analyzes the impact of quality on utilization of these services. We also study other factors, besides quality, that affect utilization.