Reproductive health service use and social determinants among the floating population: a quantitative comparative study in Guangzhou City

BACKGROUND The World Health Assembly has pledged to achieve universal reproductive health (RH) coverage by 2015. Therefore, China has been vigorously promoting the equalisation of basic public health services (i.e. RH services). The floating population (FP) is the largest special group of internal migrants in China and constitutes the current national focus. However, gaps exist in the access of this group to RH services in China. METHODS A total of 453 members of the FP and 794 members of the residential population (RP) aged 18 to 50 years from five urban districts in Guangzhou City were recruited to participate in a cross-sectional survey in 2009. Information on demographics and socioeconomic status (SES) were collected from these two groups to evaluate the utilisation of RH knowledge and skills and family planning services (FPS), and to identify social determinants. RESULTS The proportion of individuals with low SES in the FP (19.2%) was higher than that in the RP (6.3%) (P <0.001). Of the FP, 9.7% to 35.8% had no knowledge of at least one skill, a proportion higher than the counterpart values (6.2% to 27.5%) for the RP (P <0.05). The frequency of FPS use among the FP and RP was low. However, FPS use was higher among the FP than among the RP (3.51 vs. 2.99) (P =0.050). Logistic regression analysis was used to analyse the social determinants that influence FPS use in the FP and RP. The factors that affect FPS utilisation of the RP included SES (OR =4.652, 95% CI =1.751, 12.362), whereas those of the FP excluded SES. CONCLUSIONS The FPS use of the FP in Guangzhou City was higher under equalised public health services. However, a need still exists to help the FP with low SES to improve their RH knowledge and skills through access to public RH services.