Abstract

The pattern of health problems is one of the factors that indicate the community health status which is very important as a baseline data for health policy planning or in the provision of health services. The objective of this study is to describe the health problem pattern in Indonesia. The available data of Susenas 2001 can provide information on the pattern of health problems of Indonesian people. This study analyzed 65.280 households as samples of module questionnaire. The variables that will he studied are morbidity and demographic as well as socio-economic characteristics. Data has been analyzed descriptively. The result showed that 25.2% of population has a health problem, and 13.9% suffered health problem with daily life activities disturbance. The distribution of health problems in 27 provinces of Indonesia were variable. The highest percentage of the health problem was found in Gorontalo (37.7%) while people of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) was the population with the highest percentage of health problem with daily life activities disturbance (25.5%). Most of the health problems were colds, cough and fever. Susceptible groups were under fives who mostly suffered from colds, cough, fever and diarrhea, while elderly suffered from asthma, obstructed breathing and recurrent headache. They need special interventions since they have the highest percentage of health problems. We should he careful to make interpretation from this analysis due to limitation of data collection. Further analysis is needed to find out the correlation of health problems determinants.