Widow’s Health Status in Nigeria: A Nexus of Household Environmental Risk Factors and Healthcare Services Accessibility

Abstract

Studies have infrequently allied widow’s health status directly to household environmental risk factors and healthcare services accessibility in Nigeria rather have intensively linked it to widow’s subjugation to inhumane burial rites and economic inactiveness. Unsafe environment and poor healthcare facilities have been recognized as some of the major dynamics responsible for the poor health status of widows in Nigeria. Information for 367 widows was extracted from NDHS 2013 irrespective of age differentials. The response variable is widow’s health status dichotomized into “1” if widow sought any medical attention and “0” if otherwise. The key explanatory variables are household environmental risk factors and healthcare services accessibility. The explanatory variables are measured by cooking fuels, water source, toilet facility, disposal of youngest child stool, access to electricity supply, main roof material, main floor material, exterior wall materials, distance, money and healthcare worker’s attitude. Binary logistic regression was applied. Results showed that poor utilization of medical healthcare services, exposure to smoke emission, poor toilet facilities, poor main roof materials and poor exterior wall materials were significantly associated with widow’s health outcome (p<0.05). Also, the results of the study show that healthcare services accessibility was significantly associated with the health status of widows in Nigeria (p<0.05). Invariably, the study concluded that household environmental risk factors and healthcare service accessibility are significant predictors of widow’s health status in Nigeria.

Keywords: widow, health outcome, household risk factors, healthcare services accessibility.