Abstract: | The concept of primary health care coverage is concerned with a target community, its population and with the actual use the population makes of the health services provided. The present study uses registration as an indicator of service coverage and examines the factors influencing registration (age of child, child care arrangements, sex of child, duration of residence in target community, organisation of service) at the MCH clinic run by the Institute of Child Health in Somolu, a low-income area approximately nine miles from the centre of Lagos. The data and discussion indicate a number of areas in which strategies must be divised in order to improve clinic coverage as measured by the proportion of children in the target community who are registered as patients. Ref., tab. |