Background/Purpose: Malnutrition is a significant global public health burden with greater concern among children under five years in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To effectively address the problem of malnutrition, especially in resource-scarce communities, knowing the prevalence, causes and risk factors associated with it are essential steps. This scoping review aimed to identify the existing literature that uses classical regression analysis on nationally representative health survey data sets to find the individual socioeconomic, demographic and contextual risk factors associated with malnutrition among children under five years of age in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). Methods: The electronic databases searched include EMBASE (OVID platform), PubMed (MEDLINE), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Scopus, Web of Science (WoS) and Cochrane Library. Only papers written in the English language, and for which the publication date was between 1 January 1990 and 31 July 2020, were included. Results: A total of 229 papers were identified, of which 26 were studies that have been included in the review. The risk factors for malnutrition identified were classified as child-related, parental/household-related and community or area-related. Conclusions: Study-interest bias toward stunting over other anthropometric indicators of malnutrition could be addressed with a holistic research approach to equally address the various dimension of the anthropometric indicators of malnutrition in a population.

Background: Religion and Ethnicity are the two most important factors that shape the behavioral pattern especially health seeking behaviors of the people of Nigeria. This study seeks to examine the mediatory effects of the linkage between ethnicity and religion with selected socio-demographic variables on the current use of contraception (CUC) among women of reproductive age in Nigeria.Methods: Nationally representative sample of 39,948 women of reproductive age (15-49 years) in the 2013 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) was used. Chi-square was used to analyze the bivariate relationship between exposure variables and CUC. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the odds ratio with the 95% confi dence interval.Results: The prevalence of CUC was generally low for women of reproductive age in Nigeria, highest among the Yoruba women and lowest among the Hausa/Fulani/Kanuri/Seriberi (HFKS) women; highest among other Christian women and lowest for Muslim women and highest for Yoruba/other religion and lowest for women of Hausa/Fulani/Kanuri/Seriberi/Islam. The odds ratios showed that disparity across ethno-religious boundaries is significant.Conclusions and Global Health Implications: Globally, and especially in sub-Saharan African countries, maternal mortality resulting from the abortion of unintended pregnancies pose a major challenge in health delivery system. In Nigeria, a cultural and religious heterogeneous society, current use of contraceptives by women of reproductive age is found not to be a matter of independent effects of ethnicity, religiosity and other socio-demographic variables but also dependent on the effects of interactions between the ethnicity and religion.Key words: Ethnicity • Religion • Contraception • Reproductive • NigeriaCopyright © 2015 Obasohan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background/Purpose: Globally, anaemia is a severe public health condition affecting over 24% of the world’s population. Children under five years old and pregnant women are the most vulnerable to this disease. This scoping review aimed to evaluate studies that used classical statistical regression methods on nationally representative health survey data to identify the individual socioeconomic, demographic and contextual risk factors associated with developing anaemia among children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Methods/Design: The reporting pattern followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. The following databases were searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE (OVID platform), Web of Science, PUBMED, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsycINFO, Scopus, Cochrane library, African Journal of online (AJOL), Google Scholar and Measure DHS. Results: The review identified 20 relevant studies and the risk factors for anaemia were classified as child-related, parental/household-related and community- or area-related factors. The risk factors for anaemia identified included age, birth order, sex, comorbidities (such as fever, diarrhoea and acute respiratory infection), malnutrition or stunting, maternal education, maternal age, mother’s anaemia status, household wealth and place of residence. Conclusion: The outcome of this review is of significant value for health policy and planners to enable them to make informed decision that will correct any imbalances in anaemia across socioeconomic, demographic and contextual characteristics, with the view of making efficient distributions of health interventions.

Background/Purpose: In recent times, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) had been rated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the most malaria-endemic region in the world. Evidence synthesis of the factors associated with malaria among children aged under-five in SSA is urgently needed. This would help to inform decisions that policymakers and executors in the region need to make for the effective distribution of scarce palliative resources to curb the spread of the illness. This scoping review is aimed at identifying studies that have used multivariate classical regression analysis to determine the predictors associated with malaria among children under five years old in SSA. Methods/Design: The search terms followed population, intervention, comparator, outcome, timing, setting (PICOTS), and were used in searching through the following databases: PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Scopus, and Measure DHS. The databases were searched for published articles from January 1990 to December 2020. Results: Among the 1154 studies identified, only thirteen (13) studies met the study’s inclusion criteria. Narrative syntheses were performed on the selected papers to synchronize the various predictors identified. Factors ranging from child-related (age, birth order and use of a bed net), parental/household-related (maternal age and education status, household wealth index) and community-related variables (community wealth status, free bed net distribution) were some of the identified significant predictors. Conclusions: It is timely to have a synthesis of predictors that influence the malaria status of children under-five in SSA. The outcome of the review will increase the knowledge of the epidemiology of morbidity that will form the basis for designing efficient and cost-effective distribution of palliatives and control of malaria in SSA.

Malnutrition has remained a global public health issue, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Researchers have committed to studying malnutrition (especially in children under the age of five) to address the nine malnutrition targets, set by the WHO to be achieved by 2025. This study seeks to evaluate the prevalence, the individual and contextual predictors of malnutrition among children aged 6–59 months across Nigeria and its states. Two separates, independently collected, nationally representative cross-sectional surveys, the National Human Development Report (NHDR 2018) and the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (2018 NDHS) were linked for this study. Spatial map was used to describe the prevalence of malnutrition, a 3-level multivariate multilevel logistic regression models were fitted where children/individuals (at level 1) were nested in communities/clusters (at level 2) and nested in states (at level 3). A weighted sample of 7,770 children 6–59 months were considered in this study. The results showed that an estimated 43.6% of children aged 6–59 months are poorly nourished in Nigeria. The proportions of poorly nourished children were generally highest in the Northern Nigeria. Child’s gender, age, birth size, preceding birth order, anaemia status, maternal education, work status, body weight, household wealth status, number of bedrooms were among individual/household predictors of malnutrition. On the community level, being from community with high wealth index, distance to nearest health facilities is no big problem. Regional variations and gender inequality index were the state level predictors of malnutrition among children in Nigeria. This study has shown that two-third of children aged 6–59 months in Nigeria were poorly nourished, an indication of a growing concern of double burden of malnutrition in Nigeria.

Background and Objectives: Low assess to ante-natal care (ANC) services continue to pose a major public health challenge leading to high maternal mortality rates in developing countries. Non-utilization of ANC services among about a quarter of Nigerian women of reproductive age remains a major concern in the actualization of Sustainable Development Goals. Considering the complexity of healthcare utilization in Nigeria, the relationship between a particular health care utilization pattern and women autonomy has not been fully examined. This study examines the patterns of women autonomy and their relationships with ANC utilization in Nigeria. Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of the 2013 nationally representative data from the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). Factor analysis/score were used to construct women autonomy index, while chi-square and logistic regression were used to establish the relationships between the response and exposure variables. Results: There is a strong relationship between women decision making autonomy status and ANC services among Nigeria women. The odds of utilizing ANC services among women with more decision making autonomy were significantly 3.79 higher than among women with low decision-making autonomy. The use of ANC increases as age, education and wealth status of respondents increase. Conclusions and Global Health Implications: These results indicate that women autonomy is undoubtedly a major determinant of ANC utilization in Nigeria. Key words: Autonomy, Antenatal Care, Logistic Regression Analysis; Factor analysis Copyright © 2019 Obasohan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.affect economic and health promotion.