Determinants of Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the determinants of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africausing a set of cross-country data drawn from 48 countries. It adopts amultiple regression analysis. The results obtained indicates that factors likeincrease in the rate of population, inflation and external debt servicing, lackof safe water, low economic activities, gender discrimination, ethnic andreligious conflicts and HIV/AIDS have influenced the increase in the ratepoverty in the sub-region. Given these results, measures such as debtforgiveness, use of family planning devices, stable macro-economic variableslike inflation and exchange rate volatility and good governance aresuggested as possible solutions to poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Frequency of twinning in Kwara State, North-Central Nigeria

Background: Twin birth prevalence varies widely among the world population. Several factors such as genetic, maternal, socio-economic and environmental have been implicated in its incidence. Although these factors are still the subject of a number of investigations variations doexist in the reported incidence of twinning across the world. There is limited information on the frequency of twinning in Kwara state, North Central Nigeria.Aims: This study aims to determine the frequency and prevalence of twinning in Kwara state of the North Central Nigeria. We wish to update the current knowledge on the trend and frequency of twinning in North-Central Nigeria and thereby contributing to the demographic studies in thecountry.Subjects and methods: We carried out an 11-year retrospective study on the incidence of twin births between 1998 and 2008. Data were collected from the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin (UITH), Omosebi Hospital, Ilorin (OHI) and Erinle General Hospital, Erinle (EGHE) all inKwara state, North-Central Nigeria. These data were pooled together and analyzed by year and maternal age groups of 15–19, 20–24, 25–29, 30–34, 35–39, 40–44, and 45–49 years according to the standard method.Results: Frequencies of twin births of 37.60, 35.01, and 35.9 per 1000 deliveries were recorded for UITH, OHI and EGHE respectively. The overall average frequency of 37.4 per 1000 deliveries for the three hospitals was recorded in the study. The maternal age group of 25–29 years had the highest occurrence of twin births (35.33%), while the lowest was recorded in the 45–49 years age group (1.32%).Conclusion: This study shows that there is an increase in twinning rate in the Kwara state when compared with previous reports on this subject matter. This is probably due to an increase in awareness and use of ovulation stimulating drugs or multiple embryo transfers among women

Domestic Energy use and the Prevalence of Respiratory Infections in Ilorin, Nigeria

Given their consequences on human health, indoor air pollution generated through domestic en-ergy consumption is more important than outdoor pollution in the third world. The understanding however, of the intricate link between energy and health lags behind that of the linkages between water or waste management and health. The consequences of energy consumption have not been reflected in health care priorities in most countries. Apart from studies that examined the relation-ship between poverty and energy, studies are also scanty in the identification of both area and structural characteristics of urban population in relation to energy use. This study identifies the nature, types and sources of energy used by household; so as to obtain a gradient of the character-istics of energy consumption in cities of developing countries. The sources of data were primary and secondary. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relative contributions of household characteristics to the pattern of energy use. The findings revealed that occupation, household size, gender and education of household heads were significantly related to the use of unclean energy in the community. Incidence of cough either in the morning or evening, chest ill-ness and watery or blood shot eyes were due to the combined effects of smoke inhaled and these are common symptoms of persons who use unclean energy. The authors recommend among others that households be encouraged to adopt measures that will reduce exposure to smoke as a means of adaptation

Estimating the impact of birth control on fertility rate in Sub-Saharan Africa

Using a cross-country data drawn from 40 countries and a multiple regression analysis, this paper examines the impact of birth control devices on the rate of fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. Our a-prioriexpectations are that the more women used birth control devices, the less will be the fertility rate in sub-Saharan Africa. The result obtained from the study indicates that except for withdrawal method that fallcontrary to our expectation other variables (methods) like the use of pills, injection, intra uterine device(IUD), condom/diaphragm and cervical cap, female sterilization and periodic abstinence/rhythm fulfilled our a-priori expectations. These results notwithstanding, the paper suggests measures, such as the need for massive enlightenment campaign on the benefit of these birth control devices, the frequent checking of the potency of the devices and good governance in the delivery of the devices(Afr J Reprod Health 2009; 13[4]:137-145)