Statistical Modelling of Birth Spacing and Reproductive Health of Married Women From Gomoa East District in the Central Region of Ghana: A Survival Analysis Approach
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Date
2015-06
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Publisher
University of Ghana
Abstract
The objective of this research is to apply appropriate statistical techniques to
model the length of time to successive births (birth spacing) within the
reproductive health of mothers and identify the socio-demographic and sociocultural
factors that cause variation in the length of birth interval. The data
used in this study were collected using questionnaire from Gomoa East
District 2014, where multi-stage cluster sampling was used as the sampling
design. The clusters were defined as small enumeration areas (EAs) and it
was assumed that birth intervals for the women in the same cluster (children)
were correlated because they share the same environment. This study used:
Conventional Methods (Cox regression), Acceleration Failure Time (AFT);
Exponential, Weibull, Log-logistic Lognormal Frailty modelling techniques.
In the analysis, the covariates mother's age at first birth, mother's educational
level, birth experience, and survival status of the index child were found to
have significant effect on the length of birth interval for Gomoa East women.
The observations within specific women were found to be correlated and the
Cox's proportional hazards model was used to underestimate the standard
errors of the parameter estimates. The analysis with the frailty model showd
that parity may not be an important covariate for analyzing birth intervals,
especially when mother's age at birth is already in the model.
Description
Thesis(PHD)-University of Ghana, 2015
Keywords
Statistical Modelling, Birth Spacing, Reproductive Health