Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in Nigeria

Abstract Background Despite the relatively high prevalence of Sickle cell trait (SCT) in Nigeria, there has been little research into the correlates of having children with SCT among Nigerian mothers, particularly in terms of socio-demographic differentials. This study aims to investigate the matern...

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Main Authors: Gabriel Ogunde, Ayodele Shabi, Joshua O. Akinyemi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2025-02-01
Series:BMC Public Health
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-21559-0
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author Gabriel Ogunde
Ayodele Shabi
Joshua O. Akinyemi
author_facet Gabriel Ogunde
Ayodele Shabi
Joshua O. Akinyemi
author_sort Gabriel Ogunde
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Background Despite the relatively high prevalence of Sickle cell trait (SCT) in Nigeria, there has been little research into the correlates of having children with SCT among Nigerian mothers, particularly in terms of socio-demographic differentials. This study aims to investigate the maternal socio-demographic correlates of having under-five children with SCT in Nigeria. Method Data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (Household Person Recode and Children Recode) were merged. Mothers with at least one under-five child whose genotype was known (n = 7,493) served as the unit of analysis. Three forms of outcome variable were explored. First was the number of children with SCT by each mother. Second, the number of children with SCT was categorized as zero, one, two or more. Lastly, each mother was categorized as either having no child(ren) with SCT or having at least one child with SCT. Subsequently, we assessed multilevel Poisson, ordinal and binary logit models to identify the best fitting model using Akaike and Bayesian Information Criterion. Multilevel binary logistic regression model was identified as best fit used to identify factors associated with having children with SCT. Adjusted Odds Ratio with 95% Confidence Interval (CI) were reported as measures of association. Result Nearly 62% of the mothers lived in rural areas, 38.2% had no formal education and 37.4% had ever given birth to at least five children. About 26.1% (95% CI = 25.2–26.9) of the mothers had children with SCT. By geographical variation, the Northwest region had the highest proportion of mothers of under-five children with SCT. Results from the multilevel binary logistic regression revealed that women who were traditionalists (AOR = 1.77; 95% CI = 1.04–3.02) were more likely of having children with SCT. Conclusion Though SCT is a genetic outcome, findings from this study suggest that important socio-demographic factors such as religion, and region of residence are significantly associated with having children with SCT in Nigeria. Sustained efforts on awareness campaigns on SCT are recommended.
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spelling doaj-art-7802bea1d7da4e32ab2dfd49cc6265ba2025-02-09T12:58:01ZengBMCBMC Public Health1471-24582025-02-0125111010.1186/s12889-025-21559-0Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in NigeriaGabriel Ogunde0Ayodele Shabi1Joshua O. Akinyemi2Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine, University of IbadanDepartment of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine, University of IbadanDepartment of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine, University of IbadanAbstract Background Despite the relatively high prevalence of Sickle cell trait (SCT) in Nigeria, there has been little research into the correlates of having children with SCT among Nigerian mothers, particularly in terms of socio-demographic differentials. This study aims to investigate the maternal socio-demographic correlates of having under-five children with SCT in Nigeria. Method Data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (Household Person Recode and Children Recode) were merged. Mothers with at least one under-five child whose genotype was known (n = 7,493) served as the unit of analysis. Three forms of outcome variable were explored. First was the number of children with SCT by each mother. Second, the number of children with SCT was categorized as zero, one, two or more. Lastly, each mother was categorized as either having no child(ren) with SCT or having at least one child with SCT. Subsequently, we assessed multilevel Poisson, ordinal and binary logit models to identify the best fitting model using Akaike and Bayesian Information Criterion. Multilevel binary logistic regression model was identified as best fit used to identify factors associated with having children with SCT. Adjusted Odds Ratio with 95% Confidence Interval (CI) were reported as measures of association. Result Nearly 62% of the mothers lived in rural areas, 38.2% had no formal education and 37.4% had ever given birth to at least five children. About 26.1% (95% CI = 25.2–26.9) of the mothers had children with SCT. By geographical variation, the Northwest region had the highest proportion of mothers of under-five children with SCT. Results from the multilevel binary logistic regression revealed that women who were traditionalists (AOR = 1.77; 95% CI = 1.04–3.02) were more likely of having children with SCT. Conclusion Though SCT is a genetic outcome, findings from this study suggest that important socio-demographic factors such as religion, and region of residence are significantly associated with having children with SCT in Nigeria. Sustained efforts on awareness campaigns on SCT are recommended.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-21559-0Sickle cell traitGenetic screeningUnder-fiveNigeria
spellingShingle Gabriel Ogunde
Ayodele Shabi
Joshua O. Akinyemi
Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in Nigeria
BMC Public Health
Sickle cell trait
Genetic screening
Under-five
Nigeria
title Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in Nigeria
title_full Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in Nigeria
title_fullStr Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in Nigeria
title_full_unstemmed Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in Nigeria
title_short Statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive-age women in Nigeria
title_sort statistical exploration of factors associated with birth of children having sickle cell traits among reproductive age women in nigeria
topic Sickle cell trait
Genetic screening
Under-five
Nigeria
url https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-21559-0
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