Health seeking behavior is any action of energetically seeking help from the health care services or form trusted people in the community that may include understanding, guidance, treatment and general support when feeling in trouble or encountering stressful circumstances. Study of human behavior is an art and dealing with solving its problem is science. One of the dynamics of human behavior is how they react in case of sickness. With plenty available options they took decision depending on their respective socio-cultural, economic and demographic circumstances.
Strategic policy formation in all health care systems should be based on information relating to health promoting, seeking and utilization behavior and the factors determining these behaviors. All such behaviors occur within some institutional structures such as family, Community or health care services. The factors determining the health behaviors may be seen in various contexts: physical, socio-economic, cultural and political.
Therefore, the utilization of a health care system, public or private, formal or non-formal, may depend on socio-demographic factors, social structures, level of education, cultural beliefs and practices, gender discrimination, status of women, economic and political systems environmental conditions, and the disease pattern and health care system itself. By this way we can understand how people engage with health care system and how they remain at full liberty and choice to decide on the best interest of the family to consult different types of healers.

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The main driver for the health seeking behavior is the organization of the health care system. In many health care systems there is tension between public and the private health sector. The private health sector tends to serve the affluent; thus the public sector resources should be freed for the poor. A dynamic cooperation, either formal or informal, between the two sectors is a must but the private sector is rarely taken into account in health planning scenarios. The public and private sector may substitute for each other. There are very often resource mixes with the doctors working in the public sector also establishing their own private practice. Features of the service outlet and confidence in the service provider also play a major role in decision making about the choice of health facility.
HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR
Health seeking behavior has been identified as any action or inaction undertaken by individuals who perceive themselves to have a health problem or to ill for the purpose of finding an appropriate remedy.
For this reason, the nature of care seeking is not homogenous depending on cognitive and non-cognitive factors that call for a contextual analysis of care seeking behavior. Context may be a factor of cognition or awareness, socio-cultural as well as economic factors.
Health seeking behavior can also be referred to as illness or behavior or sick-term behavior. It encompasses all activities undertaken to maintain good health, to prevent ill health, as well as dealing with any departure form a good state of health.
WHY PEOPLE DEVELOP HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR
People do not just develop health seeking behavior, there are factors or reasons which lead people to health seeking behavior and some of these factors are under listed below:
A) AGEING PROBLEM
Ageing problem is one of the reasons why people develop health seeking behavior. As people age, they tend to be prone to lots of illnesses since their immune system may no longer be as strong as when they were still young to fight diseases in their body. Therefore, they begin to seek for health behavior from medical professionals in order to maintain their health.
B) LITTLE OR NO DRUG RELATED KNOWLEDGE
When an individual have little or no drug related knowledge, it is expected that he/she begins to develop health seeking behavior. It is advisable that one with mo knowledge of drugs seek help to avoid getting the wrong medications for the perceived/diagnose illness.
C) LACK OF ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE FACILITIES
Another factor that makes people develop health seeking behavior is lack of access to health care facilities. It is a known fact that a proper and accessible healthcare service is one of the major problems in the country especially to those residing in the rural areas of the country. It is difficult for them to access health care facilities and as such there is need to develop health seeking behavior immediately.
D) CHANGES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
There are some environments that seriously demands one developing a health seeking behavior especially those environment that are not healthy and are prone to contaminating different kinds of diseases.
HOW TO SOLVE IT
A) GO FOR REGULAR MEDICAL CHECK UP
One of the ways to solving some of these health issues or avoiding them is going for regular medical checkup. Regular medical checkups are highly advisable to all especially to the ageing adults. It helps in early detection of any illness and immediate treatment administered to avoid any serious health implications and complications. Regular medical checkups will also avail you the opportunity of getting medical advice to prevent any impeding illness.
B) ALWAYS OBSERVE YOUR BODY
Another point to note is the ability to always observe your body. Don’t be the ignorant type who cares les of then changes going on in the body. You should be highly observant and take note of any change or development ion your body especially the unusual ones as neglecting them could pose a serious threat to your health and total well-being.
C) SPEAK OUT IF YOU ARE NOT OK
Last but not the least, do not be silent learn to always speak out speak to someone whether especially a medical personnel or someone that can direct you to a medical personnel to get help immediately. Silence especially when it has to do with health have shown to be the leading cause of the untimely death of many. Do not feel ashamed of any sickness no matter what it is. Early detection can save your life and also prevent the sickness from escalating and becoming uncontrollable.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, there is need for provision of good health care services, affordability of such services and proximity were considered the most important service characteristics in seeking health seeking behavior. Thus, policy formulation and implementation should be directed towards improving access to healthcare services. This can be done by increasing the number of health facilities in under-served areas. The quality of care provided at health facilities also requires attention as mentoring, supportive supervision and other measures could be embarked upon in order to improve quality of care. Issues concerning affordability of such health services can be addressed by up-scaling the coverage of the National Health Insurance Scheme. This would provide financial protection for households with lower socio-economic status in order to encourage use of appropriate healthcare sources during illness episodes