Social determinants of health and adolescent childbearing in WHO Eastern Mediterranean countries

International Journal for Equity in Health

Research

Abdesslam Boutayeb¹ 

[1] Laboratory of Stochastic and Deterministic Modelling, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Sciences, University Mohamed Premier, Boulevard Mohamed VI, 60 000, Oujda, Morocco;

关键词: Adolescent pregnancy;    Motherhood;    Social determinants;    Inequity;    Milieu;    Education;    Wealth.;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12939-023-01861-2

 received in 2022-01-31, accepted in 2023-03-13,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

ObjectivesTeenage pregnancy and motherhood is a crucial problem in countries of the World Health Organisation Eastern Mediterranean Region (WHO–EMR). The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the phenomenon of adolescent childbearing in ten countries according to social determinants like milieu (rural–urban), education level, wealth quintiles, territoriality (countries, regions) and nationality.MethodsInequity in terms of adolescent childbearing was analysed using disaggregated data given by Demographic Health Surveys (DHS), UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and the Pan Arab Project for Family Health (PAPFAM) surveys. Beside the absolute differences (gaps) and relative differences (ratios), the index of dissimilarity (ID) was used to compare the distributions of adolescent pregnancy and motherhood by social determinants in each country.ResultsData analysis indicates that the average percentage of adolescent women aged 15–19 years who have begun childbearing shows a large difference between countries, varying from 0.4% in Tunisia to 15.1% in Sudan, combined with huge gaps within each country as indicated by the values of the index of dissimilarity. Poor, rural and non-educated adolescent girls are more exposed to teenage childbearing than their counterparts—rich, urban and educated girls.ConclusionAccording to different social determinants, sensible variations are seen in terms of adolescent pregnancy and motherhood within the ten countries considered in this study. This is a clear appeal to decision makers to reduce child marriage and pregnancy by acting on social determinants of health, targeting disadvantaged girls coming mainly from marginalised groups and poor families living in remote rural zones.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

40517_2023_256_Article_IEq199.gif

41116_2023_36_Article_IEq167.gif

41116_2023_36_Article_IEq138.gif

Fig. 1

41116_2023_36_Article_IEq61.gif

41116_2023_36_Article_IEq35.gif