Nigeria’s demographic transition and implications on the attainment of sustainable development goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a time-bound global development agenda with 17 goals which targets 169 social, economic, and environmental indicators agreed upon in 2015 by UN member states to be achieved by year 2030. The SDGs includes many targets and references to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, improved health for women and children, enhance universal access to quality education, and gender equality, among others. This study utilised the reports of Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys from 1990 to 2018 and the 2006 national population census results to understand and analyse Nigeria’s demographic trends (age structure, fertility and mortality rates) with the intention to understand how they may affect the country’s efforts towards realising the set targets of the SDGs relating to eradication of poverty and hunger, ensuring health of the people, providing quality education and empowering women and girls. Findings showed that Nigeria’s demographic trends is characterised by slowly declining mortality and fertility rates with high population growth rate, and a dismal performance in the SDGs targets relating to poverty, hunger, health, education and women empowerment. The country will have to slow down its population growth rate and invest heavily in education, healthcare and job creation to be able to achieve the targets of the SDGs by 2030

Trend and Determinants of Unmet Need for Family Planning Services among Currently Married Women and Sexually Active Unmarried Women Aged 15-49 in Nigeria (2003—2013)

This study examines trend and determinants of unmet need for family planning (FP) among currently married women and sexually active unmarried women of reproductive age 15-49 in Nigeria over a period of 10 years (2003-2013). Data from three consecutive Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys (2003, 2008 and 2013) were analyzed. The results show that the unmet need for FP declined between 2008 and 2013 to a level less comparable with the situation in 2003. The significant determinants of unmet need for FP included age, marital status, education, religion, current work status, decision-making on spending personal earnings, gender of household heads, household wealth status, number of living children (including current pregnancy), rural-urban residence, home visit by FP workers and recent exposure to FP messages via mass media. It is therefore necessary that FP programmers continue to develop specific responses that address the barriers to contraceptive use.

Levels and Trends in Household Source of Cooking Fuel in Nigeria: Implications on Under-Five Mortality

Background: Studies have shown that characteristics present in the neighbourhood where children are raised might likely influence the mortality risks of such children. Cooking fuel can be regarded as one of the environmental factors determined by the socioeconomic background of the household, but the nexus between this and the health outcome of under-five children had received little attention. Objective: This study seeks to examine the levels and trends of source of cooking fuels among households in Nigeria as implied on under-five mortality. Methods: The data used was the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS)-Child Recode file of 2003, 2008 and 2013. The method of analysis used was the descriptive approach which includes cross tabulation, charts and tables. The chi-square statistic was used to show the significance of the association between the variables of interest in the study. Results: The percentage of U-5 children who lived in homes where wood was used as cooking fuel was about 80 percent. The findings from this study show that there was a highly significant relationship between type of cooking fuel and under-five mortality in Nigeria (P<0.001). The poorest and the poorer represented the highest percentage among the households that used wood and agric. crop/dung for cooking. Environmental factor such as type of cooking fuel is significantly associated to socioeconomic characteristics of the household where the child lives, some of which includes wealth status and place of residence as discussed in the result. Recommendation and conclusion: The study found that, there has not been a major improvement in the source of cooking fuel in households where under-five children are raised and this contribute in determining their health outcomes. Therefore, the government of Nigeria needs to provide reliable power supply (electricity) for household consumption. Also, gas fuel must be made available and affordable for household consumption

Legal Responses to Domestic Violence in Marriages and Their Implication for Marriage Sustainability in Nigeria

Domestic violence is a phenomenon which has caused so much concern in society and generated intense debates among policymakers, civil society activists and scholars. It is, therefore, no surprise that it is attracting so much scholarly attention lately. Despite the wide interest it has generated, an appropriate response grounded in law to tackle the scourge has defied logic. The situation even gets more complicated when other societal values such as marriage are present between the parties. So many (legal) mechanisms have been put in place in response to domestic violence. These responses are primarily grounded in law, mainly involving the criminal justice or legal system. Specifically, the typical response has been the use of the law and criminal justice approach. Despite the many advantages of the common approach, questions arise regarding its suitability for married partners. Indeed, recent concerns have arisen, especially in family law jurisprudence, regarding the need to preserve the institution of marriages, especially for domestic violence cases which are ‘resolvable’. This is because, in many cases, the common approach mainly results in the breakdown of marriages. Thus, the partial decriminalisation approach has begun to gain wide attention, especially in domestic violence cases between married partners. The objective of this paper is to analyse the various responses to domestic violence and their implication for the sustainability of marriages

Incorporating High-Frequency Weather Data into Consumption Expenditure Predictions

Recent efforts have been very successful in accurately mapping welfare in datasparse regions of the world using satellite imagery and other non-traditional data sources. However, the literature to date has focused on predicting a particular class of welfare measures, asset indices, which are relatively insensitive to short term fluctuations in well-being. We suggest that predicting more volatile welfare measures, such as consumption expenditure, substantially benefits from the incorporation of data sources with high temporal resolution. By incorporating daily weather data into training and prediction, we improve consumption prediction accuracy significantly compared to models that only utilize satellite imagery

Patterns and determinants of contraceptives utilization in a religiously homogeneous settlement: a Nigerian case study

Objective: To identify the determinants of contraceptive utilization in a religiously homogenous settlement in Nigeria.Methods: Using Nsukka, Enugu State as a case study, the study utilized primary data generated using a structured questionnaire administered on 600 female respondents aged 15-49 on pre/post-natal care hospital visits. The datasets were analyzed at univariate and bivariate levels and using binary regression.Results: Women aged 20–29 constituted 44.6% of the respondents, 80% were married, 80.2% were Christians, 42.1% had secondary education, 5.2% earned above N80,000 monthly and 56.8% used contraceptives. Variations in contraceptive use were found to be significantly associated with age, income, occupation and religion (P &lt; 0.05) while the regression analyses showed that religion was the only significant predictor of contraceptive use among the sample (P &lt; 0.05). Being unemployed became significant only when religion was controlled for.Conclusion: With religion being a more dominant determinant of contraceptive utilization, even in a largely religiously-homogeneous settlement, scaling up contraceptive usage for population health and development should involve health professionals and social workers in their various churches.Keywords: Contraceptive Use, Religion, Health Professionals, Social Workers, Nsukka, Nigeri

Male Involvement in Family Planning: A Qualitative Survey of the Barriers and Facilitators amongst Married Men in Sokoto metropolis

Background: Although large families are desired in Nigeria, women tend to want fewer children than men but are often unable to limit or space childbirth due to gender dynamics within relationships. Studies have identified men as a significant barrier to the use of&nbsp; contraceptives by their wives. The study explored married men’s knowledge and perception on family planning (FP), involvement in FP, barriers and facilitators of male involvement (MI) in FP in Sokoto Metropolis.Methods: A qualitative study was done among married men in Sokoto Metropolis in November 2017. Four focus group discussions were conducted among thirty-two men grouped based on educational status and age. Data was transcribed verbatim and a content analysis on emerging themes was done.Results: All the participants were aware of FP and most of them said that it is beneficial to everyone in the community. Most of the&nbsp; participants perceived that FP is an issue for both men and women. All the participants said that men should be involved in FP. The barriers to MI in FP mentioned were lack of knowledge on FP and poverty while increasing awareness on FP, religious leaders and traditional rulers championing FP, and making FP free were the facilitators suggested.Conclusion: The participants said that FP is beneficial to everyone in the community and men should be involved in FP. Traditional and religious leaders should be made the champions of FP in their various communities to improve acceptance and utilisation

The risk factors for malaria in under-fives in Gindiri community of Mangu Local Government Area, Plateau State

Background: Malaria is responsible for 25 % of infant mortality and 30 % of under-5 mortality globally.In Nigeria, it is a huge public health problem with an estimated 300,000 children dying of the disease each year which represents one in every four deaths in childhood. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of malaria in under-fives and the risk factors responsible for malaria in Gindiri, a rural community in the North-central part of Nigeria.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among 390 under-fives in Gindiri Community of Mangu LGA, Plateau State. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the under-fives. A semistructured, interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from the respondents. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 23.0.Results: The prevalence of malaria by Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) was 34.9%, 74 (34.5%) were females and 62 (35.2%) were males. The use of torn windows/door screens was a major predictor for a positive RDT in under-fives. Majority (91.8%) of households possessed insecticide treated nets but none of them had ever been treated.Conclusion: Understanding the household and environmental risk factors for malaria is vital in tackling the high burden of malaria in rural communities. The prevalence of malaria among the under-fives in Gindiri is still a public health problem.Keywords: Malaria, Under-fives, household, environment, risk factor

Involvement of pastors’ wives in educating nursing mothers on childcare practices in Ibadan North local government area, Nigeria

Poor childcare practices among nursing mothers have been implicated as one of the factors influencing high child morbidity and mortality in many developing countries including Nigeria. Many health promotion and education approaches have been used in previous studies to improve childcare practices but very few have considered the inherent potentials of using faith-based strategy as one of the acceptable means of health promotion in many developing countries. This descriptive cross-sectional study was aimed at investigating the involvement of Pastors’ wives as change agents in educating nursing mothers on childcare practices in Ibadan North Local Government Area. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select pastors’ wives from all the registered churches in the Local Government Area. A pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. One hundred and twenty-eight (N=128) pastors’ wives with age of 46.1±9.3 years were interviewed. Overall, 9.4% had never taught or preached on childcare practices or other health-related matters to mothers/women in the church before. Analysis showed that 42.2%, 26.6% and 31.3% of Pastor’s wives had good, fair and poor level of basic communication techniques, respectively. Age and educational status of Pastors’ wives significantly affect the level of communication between Pastors’ wives and mothers in the church (p&lt;0.05). Involvement of Pastors’ wives with the mothers on childcare practices was through counselling (90.6%), teaching (53.1%), preaching (29.7%) and phone calls (18.8%). Counselling was the most preferred method (68.0%) of communication. This study establishes the fact that Pastors’ wives and nursing mothers have been communicating health matters through counselling, which can be used as an opportunity for improving child care through faith-based setting.Keywords: Child health care practices, Pastors’ wife involvement, Faith-based approach, Nursing mothersAfr. J. Biomed. Res. Vol. 22 (May, 2019); 145- 15

Determinants of Concordance and Discordance Reporting of Contraceptive Use among Couples in Nigeria: Evidence from NDHS

Sexual behavior and contraceptive use dynamics within marital union presents a very complex and dyad interpretations. Among the complexities is the possibility of couples’ sexual fidelity to each other, infidelity of either of the partners or both partners. Secondly, are the couples’ approaches to other marital derivatives including fertility and contraceptive use. The analysis examined the determinants of concordance and discordance reporting of contraceptive use among couples in Nigeria with a view to understanding factors in concordance and discordance reporting of contraceptive use. The analysis utilized the 2008 NDHS couples recode dataset. The data were analyzed using Kappa Statistics and multinomial logistic regression. The results showed that age, education, wealth index, residence, fertility desire and fertility preference were significant factors predicting concordance reporting of contraceptive use (P&lt;0.05) while work status, wealth status and fertility preference were significant factors predicting discordance reporting of contraceptive use (P&lt;0.05). The analysis concluded that couples concordance reporting of contraceptive use is important in fertility control and in addressing the scourge of HIV/AIDS and other STIs in Nigeria.