Housing and child health in sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-sectional analysis

by Lucy S. Tusting, Peter W. Gething, Harry S. Gibson, Brian Greenwood, Jakob Knudsen, Steve W. Lindsay, Samir Bhatt BackgroundHousing is essential to human well-being but neglected in global health. Today, housing in Africa is rapidly improving alongside economic development, creating an urgent need to understand how these changes can benefit health. We hypothesised that improved housing is associated with better health in children living in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of housing conditions relative to a range of child health outcomes in SSA. Methods and findingsCross-sectional data were analysed for 824,694 children surveyed in 54 Demographic and Health Surveys, 21 Malaria Indicator Surveys, and two AIDS Indicator Surveys conducted in 33 countries between 2001 and 2017 that measured malaria infection by microscopy or rapid diagnostic test (RDT), diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections (ARIs), stunting, wasting, underweight, or anaemia in children aged 0 –5 years. The mean age of children was 2.5 years, and 49.7% were female. Housing was categorised into a binary variable based on a United Nations definition comparing improved housing (with improved drinking water, improved sanitation, sufficient living area, and finished building materials) versu s unimproved housing (all other houses). Associations between house type and child health outcomes were determined using conditional logistic regression within surveys, adjusting for prespeci...
Source: PLoS Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: research