BACKGROUND Recently, Nigeria emerged as the largest economy in Africa and the 26th in the world. However, a pertinent question is how this new economic status has impacted on the wealth and health of her citizens. There is a dearth of empirical study on the wealth distribution in Nigeria which could be important in explaining the general disparities in their health seeking behavior. An adequate...

background the major objective of the national health insurance scheme (nhis) in nigeria is to protect families from the financial hardship of large medical bills. catastrophic health expenditure (che) is rampart in nigeria despite the take-off of the nhis. this study aimed to determine if households enrolled in the nhis were protected from having che.   methods the study took place among 714 h...

Little research exists on health determinants among adults living in economically deprived regions despite the fact that these areas comprise a good part of the world. This paper examines the distribution of wealth then tests associations between wealth inequality and a variety of health outcomes, among older adults, in one of the world's poorest regions--rural Cambodia. Data from the 2004 Surv...

Background The major objective of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Nigeria is to protect families from the financial hardship of large medical bills. Catastrophic Health Expenditure (CHE) is rampart in Nigeria despite the take-off of the NHIS. This study aimed to determine if households enrolled in the NHIS were protected from having CHE.   Methods The study took place among 714 h...

BACKGROUND Wealth quintiles derived from household asset indices are routinely used for measuring socioeconomic inequalities in the health of women and children in low and middle-income countries. We explore whether the use of wealth deciles rather than quintiles may be advantageous. METHODS We selected 46 countries with available national surveys carried out between 2003 and 2013 and with a ...

OBJECTIVE Initiatives to monitor progress in health interventions like sanitation are increasingly focused on disparities in access. We explored three methodological challenges to monitoring changes in sanitation coverage across socio-economic and demographic determinants: (i) confounding by wealth indices including water and sanitation assets, (ii) use of individual urban and rural settings ve...

BACKGROUND The majority of social marketing programs are intended to reach the poor. It is therefore essential that social marketing organizations monitor the health equity of their programs and improve targeting when the poor are not being reached. Current measurement approaches are often insufficient for decision making because they fail to show a program's ability to reach the poor and demon...

This article analyses male contraceptive use, both globally and for developing countries. Shares of all contraceptive use due to males are examined, in the context of female use and all use. Patterns according to wealth quintiles are analysed, as well as time trends and geographic variations. Data are drawn primarily from compilations by the UN Population Division and from the Demographic and H...

BACKGROUND Adult height is a useful biological measure of long term population health and well being. We examined the cohort differences and socioeconomic patterning in adult height in low- to middle-income countries. METHODS/FINDINGS We analyzed cross-sectional, representative samples of 364,538 women aged 25-49 years drawn from 54 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted between 1994 ...

Background: Diarrhoea represents a major burden of childhood disease in countries with low and middle incomes. The need for targeting poorer socioeconomic groups has been forwarded as a priority in diarrhoea control. The aim of this study was to determine the role of socioeconomic inequalities in the control of childhood diarrhoea. Methods: Household data on prevalence and case management of di...