Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa

BACKGROUND: The prevalence (≈ 30%) of anaemia among women of reproductive age in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a significant concern. Additionally, less than half of households in the region have access to basic sanitation facilities, raising questions about the potential role of poor sanitation in in...

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Autores principales: Chanimbe, Benamba, Issah, Abdul-Nasir, Mahama, Abraham Bangamsi, Yeboah, Daudi, Kpordoxah, Mary Rachael, Shehu, Nura, Chukwu, Ngozi Mabel, Boah, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
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Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10576365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37833703
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16890-3
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author Chanimbe, Benamba
Issah, Abdul-Nasir
Mahama, Abraham Bangamsi
Yeboah, Daudi
Kpordoxah, Mary Rachael
Shehu, Nura
Chukwu, Ngozi Mabel
Boah, Michael
author_facet Chanimbe, Benamba
Issah, Abdul-Nasir
Mahama, Abraham Bangamsi
Yeboah, Daudi
Kpordoxah, Mary Rachael
Shehu, Nura
Chukwu, Ngozi Mabel
Boah, Michael
author_sort Chanimbe, Benamba
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The prevalence (≈ 30%) of anaemia among women of reproductive age in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a significant concern. Additionally, less than half of households in the region have access to basic sanitation facilities, raising questions about the potential role of poor sanitation in increasing anaemia prevalence. To address this, we examined the relationship between access to basic sanitation facilities and the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in SSA. METHODS: The study analysed cross-sectional household-level Demographic and Health Survey data from selected SSA countries. A total of 100,861 pregnant and non-pregnant women aged 15 to 49 from 27 countries were analysed. Access to basic sanitation and haemoglobin (Hb) levels were classified using WHO and UNICEF standards. To examine the link between access to basic sanitation facilities and the prevalence of anaemia, a multilevel regression analysis was conducted, which adjusted for country fixed-effects to ensure that the findings were not biassed by variations in country-level factors. RESULTS: Nearly 37% (95% CI: 36.4, 37.9) of households had access to basic sanitation facilities, and 41% (95% CI: 40.8, 42.1) of women had Hb levels that indicated anaemia. Women with access to basic sanitation had a lower risk of anaemia than those without access (AOR = 0.95; 95% CI: 0.93, 0.98, p < 0.01). Factors, including maternal age, education, marital status, breastfeeding, health insurance enrollment, and wealth group, were also associated with anaemia prevalence. CONCLUSIONS: Anaemia is a severe public health problem among women of reproductive age across all 27 SSA countries analysed, with nearly four in ten being affected. Access to basic sanitation facilities was associated with a reduced anaemia risk. However, only slightly over a third of households had access to such facilities. Further research is required to examine the underlying mechanisms and inform effective interventions.
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spelling pubmed-105763652023-10-15 Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa Chanimbe, Benamba Issah, Abdul-Nasir Mahama, Abraham Bangamsi Yeboah, Daudi Kpordoxah, Mary Rachael Shehu, Nura Chukwu, Ngozi Mabel Boah, Michael BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: The prevalence (≈ 30%) of anaemia among women of reproductive age in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a significant concern. Additionally, less than half of households in the region have access to basic sanitation facilities, raising questions about the potential role of poor sanitation in increasing anaemia prevalence. To address this, we examined the relationship between access to basic sanitation facilities and the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in SSA. METHODS: The study analysed cross-sectional household-level Demographic and Health Survey data from selected SSA countries. A total of 100,861 pregnant and non-pregnant women aged 15 to 49 from 27 countries were analysed. Access to basic sanitation and haemoglobin (Hb) levels were classified using WHO and UNICEF standards. To examine the link between access to basic sanitation facilities and the prevalence of anaemia, a multilevel regression analysis was conducted, which adjusted for country fixed-effects to ensure that the findings were not biassed by variations in country-level factors. RESULTS: Nearly 37% (95% CI: 36.4, 37.9) of households had access to basic sanitation facilities, and 41% (95% CI: 40.8, 42.1) of women had Hb levels that indicated anaemia. Women with access to basic sanitation had a lower risk of anaemia than those without access (AOR = 0.95; 95% CI: 0.93, 0.98, p < 0.01). Factors, including maternal age, education, marital status, breastfeeding, health insurance enrollment, and wealth group, were also associated with anaemia prevalence. CONCLUSIONS: Anaemia is a severe public health problem among women of reproductive age across all 27 SSA countries analysed, with nearly four in ten being affected. Access to basic sanitation facilities was associated with a reduced anaemia risk. However, only slightly over a third of households had access to such facilities. Further research is required to examine the underlying mechanisms and inform effective interventions. BioMed Central 2023-10-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10576365/ /pubmed/37833703 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16890-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Chanimbe, Benamba
Issah, Abdul-Nasir
Mahama, Abraham Bangamsi
Yeboah, Daudi
Kpordoxah, Mary Rachael
Shehu, Nura
Chukwu, Ngozi Mabel
Boah, Michael
Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa
title Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa
title_full Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa
title_fullStr Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa
title_full_unstemmed Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa
title_short Access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan Africa
title_sort access to basic sanitation facilities reduces the prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age in sub-saharan africa
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10576365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37833703
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16890-3
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