ABSTRACT Maternal and child health and family planning are important issues that have population and health implications globally. The use of antenatal and postnatal health care services are important components of maternal and child health care services. The essence of these health care services is to ensure good health of mothers and babies before, during and after birth. Also, the use of modern contraceptives ensures good health of mothers and their babies through good child spacing, red...
Abstract Climate change and variability affect the suitability of environmental conditions for malaria transmission. Although malaria transmission is place-specific, existing assessments of malaria transmission have largely focused on large-scale changes in malaria transmission and overlooked the socio-demographic factors that modulate climate and malaria nexus with the result largely indicating widespread increase in areas suitable for malaria transmission. In its recent assessment report, t...
ABSTRACT Despite the amendment of Ghana’s abortion laws in 1985, aimed at increasing access to safe abortion services, abortion has consistently been an important contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality in the country. Within the current context, this study explored the decision making process of females seeking abortion. The study was undertaken in Ashiaman, located in the Greater Accra region. It was based on 28 in-depth interviews among females between the ages of 15 and 30 year...
ABSTRACT Tuberculosis (TB) continues to exert significant influence on the disease profile of countries, especially in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Recent evidence shows that timely chemotherapy and proactive community response can avert deaths associated with TB. This thesis explores TB control in Ghana from 1900 to 2010. Data were collected from four major sources: archival materials from the national archives of Ghana and United Kingdom, the 2008 Ghana Demographic Health Survey, TB surve...
ABSTRACT Childhood obesity has been established to be a major public health concern globally. Children who are obese are more likely to stay obese into adulthood and to develop non communicable diseases (NCDs) at a younger age. The study sought to investigate childhood obesity and its associated factors among primary school pupils within Tema Metropolis. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 363 upper primary school pupils in the Tema Metropolis. Both inferential and descriptive stat...
ABSTRACT Linkages are the social and material links and networks that connect migrants to their places of origin. Linkages are employed by migrants to sustain relations as well as improve the socio-economic status of their places of origin. It is against this backdrop that the study sought to assess origin-destination linkages as livelihood strategy among migrants from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions of Ghana who are resident in the Cape Coast Metropolis. To accomplish this, a...
ABSTRACT This study focused on parents’ perceptions and intentions to provide condom education for adolescents. A descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study was employed using self-administered questionnaire. A total of 398 parents from rural and urban communities in Cape Coast Metropolis completed the questionnaire. The study discovered that though some adolescents have knowledge on condom use, parental contribution to such knowledge was very minimal because they do not feel comforta...
ABSTRACT Using information obtained from 8,781 women aged between 15 and 49 years, who were successfully interviewed during the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, this study analyzes the patterns, correlates and fertility effects of breastfeeding in Nigeria. The study examines the main factors that are associated with breastfeeding behaviour and estimates the mean duration of any and full breastfeeding for the country and various subgroups. A large proportion of mothers in the country ar...
ABSTRACT Globally, more people die from cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) annually than from any other cause (WHO, 2011). In Ghana, CVDs accounted for one of the top three causes of death in 2010 after diarrhoeal and HIV/AIDS. Despite this, Ghana has no effective surveillance system in place to monitor the disease. Although hospital data may partly help in monitoring the mortality from the disease, most of these data are not analysed and interpreted. The goal of the study was to examine the tren...
ABSTRACT This study used the delays model, to explain how socio-cultural factors mediate to influence the use of health facilities during the pregnancy-postpartum period in the Awutu-Senya District of the Central Region of Ghana. The administrative capital of the district was purposively sampled in addition to two randomly selected communities. The study targeted women who gave birth between September 2007 and September 2009 in the sampled areas. Proportionate stratified sampling technique wa...
ABSTRACT Adolescence is a period of transition characterised by risk taking behaviours, including sexual behaviour, which may have implications on the health of the adolescent. The study examined sexual behaviour among Senior High School students in the Cape Coast Metropolis. The data were obtained from a cross-sectional survey. Through the multi-stage sampling method, 400 students were selected from three Senior High Schools whose ages ranged from 10-19 years. Chi-square, binary logistic reg...
ABSTRACT The study examined access to and utilization of health care facilities in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam and Upper Denkyira districts of the Central Region. Multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted to select the two districts capitals and 15 other settlements in the two districts. In all 17 settlements, seven from Upper Denkyira and 10 from Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam were selected. Four hundred and twenty respondents from UDD and 380 from AEED were included in the study. Questionnaire consisti...
ABSTRACT The study on Adolescent Sexuality, Contraceptive Use and Reproductive Health was undertaken as part of the ongoing effort at understanding some o f the problems that confront adolescents in Ghana, With a general objective o f examining the magnitude of reproductive health-related problems pertaining to adolescent sexuality and contraceptive use, the study used a sample of 1,828 female adolescents aged 12-24 years (1,503 from Cape Coast and 325 from Mankrong) in the Central Region of ...
ABSTRACT The literature has shown that fertility desires are an important indicator that can help us understand and predict the future course of fertility; however, little work has been done on its relationship to ethnicity among women in Ghana using recent nationally representative data. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between ethnicity and fertility desires among two groups of parous women in Ghana. It critically examines the fertility desires (the desire for an addition...
ABSTRACT Despite the widespread advocacy for exclusive breastfeeding, and associated health, social and economic benefits, there is a low prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding in both developed and developing countries. Whilst several studies have been conducted on exclusive breastfeeding, few of such studies have linked birth weight and birth size independently with exclusive breastfeeding. Given that there is limited data on birth weight, birth size is often used as a proxy for birth weight...