Ivan YAKUM MBOAMBOGOH1*, Godfrey NJIMANTED FORGHA1
1University of Bamenda North West Region Cameroon
CaHReF 2018, Yaoundé Congres hall, 08 – 11 January 2019 , OSME048
Background: Child health is currently a cause for concern in most developing countries as spelled out in the Millennium Development goals and reiterated in the Sustainable Development Goals showing need for other policies to compliment the free immunization of children-under-five so as to arrest poor child health in Cameroon.
Objectif: To examine factors that improve child health in Cameroon from household perspectives with particular reference to household wealth endowment among others
Methodology: This paper employs a causal research design to examine the effect of household wealth endowment among other variables on child health outcomes in Cameroon with diarrhoea being the point of focus for child health. The data used for this study was extracted from the DHS (2011) collected by INS. The equation below model the functional relationship between household wealth endowment and child health CH = f(WI, AGE, SEX, TPR, SDW, TTF, HHEDUC, HHS, CMS).
Logistic regression analysis was used in the estimation of the model because dependent variable is categorical, having only two categories. Some descriptive Analysis were also done.
Results: This paper revealed that increase in household wealth, household head being married compared to being single, household head being more educated, household head being female instead of male, and type of place of residence being urban instead of rural all reduce the likelihood of children having diarrhoea (meaning improving child health) while increase in household size rather increases the likelihood of children from such households having diarrhoea (worsening child health).
Conclusion/Recommandation: This paper concludes that there is a very significant positive effect of household wealth endowment on child health and child health is better in female headed households than male headed household. This paper strongly recommends that in order to boast child health, more reforms should be directed towards the acquisition of household wealth, it's effective and efficient allocation towards the healthcare of children under-five since they are more vulnerable.
Key Words: Household Wealth, Child Health, DHS, Logit