Fever and Its Treatment Among the More and Less Poor in Sub-Saharan Africa
The author empirically explores the relationship between household poverty and the incidence and treatment of fever--as an indicator of malaria--among children in Sub-Saharan Africa. He uses household Demographic and Health Survey data collected in...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/03/1732223/fever-treatment-among-more-less-poor-sub-saharan-africa http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14847 |
| Summary: | The author empirically explores the
relationship between household poverty and the incidence and
treatment of fever--as an indicator of malaria--among
children in Sub-Saharan Africa. He uses household
Demographic and Health Survey data collected in the 1990s
from 22 countries in which malaria is prevalent. The
analysis reveals a positive, but weak, association between
reported fever and poverty. The geographic association
becomes insignificant, however, after controlling for the
mother's education. There is some evidence that higher
levels of wealth in other households in the cluster in which
the household lives are associated with lower levels of
reported fever in Eastern and Southern Africa. Poverty and
the type of care sought for an episode of fever are
significantly associated: wealthier households are
substantially more likely to seek care in the modern health
sector. In Central and Western Africa those from richer
households are more likely to seek care from all types of
sources: government hospitals, lower-level public facilities
such as health clinics, as well as private sources. In
Eastern and Southern Africa the rich are primarily more
likely to seek care from private facilities. In both regions
there is substantial use of private facilities--use that
increases with wealth. Like the incidence of fever,
treatment-seeking behavior is strongly associated with the
level of wealth in the cluster in which the child lives. |
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