Date of Award

Spring 5-8-2013

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Health (MPH)

Department

Public Health

First Advisor

Dr. Ike Okosun

Second Advisor

Dr. Bruce Perry

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Background: Millions of children still remain unvaccinated despite efforts to eradicate some of the vaccine preventable diseases globally. The African continent harbors the most burdens as and millions of children do not have access to basic immunization services. As Malawi thrives to meet the MDGs of reducing the infant mortality rate and decrease the proportion of one year-old children immunized against measles, a considerable proportion of children still remain with incomplete vaccination status.

Objective: The study examined some of the selected mothers’ socio-demographic factors that are associated with incomplete vaccination status among the under-five populations in Malawi. Socio-demographic factors such as age of the mother; household wealth index; educational level of the mother; region, place of residence and religion were evaluated to assess their associations with vaccine status outcome.

Methodology: The selected demographic factors were analyzed using the SPSS version 20. In this study, the rate of incomplete vaccination was 22% among the study population. Data were obtained from the MEASURE DHS-2010 data base. Frequencies for the selected demographics were created; univariate and multinomial logistic regression analyses were also run to measure the associations between the mother’s socio-demographic factors and the vaccination status population under study.

Results: The study revealed statistically significant results between the northern region and vaccination coverage which has higher vaccination coverage as compared to the Central and Southern region in Malawi respectively. The results also revealed a positive association between wealth index of the household specifically the middle level class that had a statistically significant association between vaccination and wealth. Importantly, factors like education, religion, age of mother, ownership of a radio and a television had statistically insignificant associations.

Conclusion: This study did not find a statistically significant association between education and status of vaccination including factors related to living in rural or the urban set up. More research studies on regional boundaries and health disparities specifically on vaccination coverage among the under-five populations should be taken into consideration.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/4116987

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