Poverty is a pervasive problem in Africa and especially in Nigeria (World Bank, 2008).
About 50.3% of the population of Sub-saharan Africa is reported to be living below the
International Poverty Line of US$1.25 (UN, 2008). In Nigeria, about 55% of the population is
living below the poverty line (World Bank, 2008). There is a geographical and sectoral
dimension to the poverty situation in Nigeria. Poverty in Nigeria is more intense in the rural
areas than the urban areas (Aigbokhan, 2000; Aigbokhan, 2008). Majority of Nigerians living
in the rural areas are engaged either directly or indirectly in agriculture (NBS, 2006) and
these are the people who are mostly trapped in poverty.
To develop appropriate policies to address poverty, there is a need for proper measurement
of poverty. The use of money metric measures in indicating the level of poverty is gradually
yielding place to other indicators of welfare which include deprivations in health,
educational attainment, enjoyment of citizenship rights, social participation, life expectancy
at birth and; maternal and child mortalities, among others (Okunmadewa, 1999; Srinivasan,
2001; Anderson, 2010). Among these indicators, health status and access to health facilities
are keys to lifting people out of poverty or preventing them from falling into it (Republic of
Sierra Leone, 2008). This is probably the reason while these health-related indicators are
weighted heavily in the computation of the Human Development Index which is used for
ranking countries in respect of welfare status (Herero et al. 2010).
Inadequate access to health services is one of the components of rural poverty which is
prevalent in Nigeria (NBS, 2006). Inadequate access to health services determines, to a large
extent, the decision of rural households to either patronize orthodox medicine (OM) or
traditional medicine (TM) (Mafimisebi & Oguntade, 2010).