Journal of global health
Women's empowerment and childhood malaria in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from DHS, 2013-2022
By Pei Z, Ru X, Yu X and 4 others.
Abstract
Background
Women's empowerment is known to be associated with better access to child healthcare and household prevention practices. Children under five years of age depend on caregivers for access to malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, making maternal agency potentially relevant to childhood malaria. However, evidence linking its multidimensional components to childhood malaria remains limited. We examined the association between women's empowerment and childhood malaria among children in sub-Saharan Africa and explored whether these associations varied across countries and according to the children's bed net utilisation.
Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional secondary analysis of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from 19 sub-Saharan African countries surveyed between 2013 and 2022. Weighted generalised linear mixed models with a primary sampling unit random intercept and country fixed effects examined associations between three Survey-based Women's Empowerment Global index domains (attitude to violence, social independence and decision-making) and malaria test positivity among children under five years of age. Then, we ran country-specific analyses to assess between-country heterogeneity and exploratory adjustment, interaction, and stratified analyses to examine whether associations varied by the children's bed net utilisation on the previous night.