Rural populace particularly in developing countries like Nigeria experiences significant wealth and education gaps, impacting healthcare access. The recent fuel subsidy removal may exacerbate these disparities, making transportation to healthcare facilities less affordable.

Furthermore, distance to healthcare facilities, poor road conditions, and limited transportation options are common challenges in rural areas. The subsidy removal could further increase transportation costs, making already distant facilities even less accessible.

These and other factors put together may pose serious challenges particularly for children and women in rural areas leading to struggle to access healthcare services, antenatal care, and postnatal care etc. This can equally result to preventable complications and higher mortality, infant mortality and maternal mortality rates.

One way to aid targeted intervention is to map the distribution of healthcare facilities, population density, socioeconomic indicators, and transportation networks in the affected rural areas in order to identify areas with the greatest disparities in access.