Environment-related factors influencing morbidity among economically active household members in urban and rural Nigeria

Abstract

Environmental quality is among the factors influencing people's health. In this paper, attempt was made to analyze environment-related factors that influence reported morbidity in Nigeria. During 2013 the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data were collected from 38,522 households and analyzed with the negative binomial regression model. The results showed that 5.91% of all households reported that some household members were smoking inside their houses, while 28.47% were sharing toilets. Water was boiled before being used by 2.62% of the respondents. Modern cooking fuel was used by 26.55% of the households. Separate rooms for cooking were reported by 26.68% of the households. However, 1.97% and 1.54% of the households in rural and urban areas respectively reported that one person was sick in the previous one month to the survey. Also, 1.17% and 1.05% of rural and urban households respectively reported that household members had been very sick for three months. Also, in the previous one year, 6.98% and 3.37% of rural and urban households reported that at least an household members had died in the past one year. Out of the included variables in the Negative Binomial regression, years of education, smoke inside the house, access to electricity, age of household heads, use of clean cooking fuel, having place for hand washing, and number of rooms per person showed statistical significance (p < 0.05). There is the need to create more environmental awareness on the impacts of environmental quality on health of household members.