African Population Studies Vol. 29, No. 2, 2015
Religion as a Social Determinant of Maternal Health Care Service Utilisation in Nigeria Bola L. Solankea, Olusegun A. Oladosub, Ambrose Akinloc and Samson O. Olanisebed a
Department of Demography and Social Statistics,
[email protected] b Department of Religious Studies,
[email protected] c Department of Demography and Social Statistics,
[email protected] d Department of Religious Studies,
[email protected] Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Abstract This study examines the relationship between religious affiliation and utilisation of maternal health care services using 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey data. The outcome variable is utilisation of maternal health care service measured by antenatal care and place of delivery. The explanatory variables were religion and three purposively selected social determinants of health, namely the social gradient, work condition and social exclusion. The chi-square test and multinomial logistic regression were applied. Result show that 50.7% had the recommended 4 or more antenatal care visits; 23.4% and 13.5% respectively utilise public and private sector facilities for their most recent child delivery. The relative risk of having 4 or more antenatal visits reduce by a factor of 0.7863 for Muslim women (p
