Clifford Odimegwu

University of the Witwatersrand | wits · Demography and Population Studies Programme

Background Ensuring uninterrupted access and utilisation of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services remains crucial for preventing adverse SRH outcomes. However, the unprecedented emergence of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) significantly disrupted most of these services in Africa. Thus, we systematically reviewed and examined barrier...

Aim Despite the huge investment in reducing cases of teenage pregnancy in South Africa, the incidence remains high. Interventions are targeted at girls with minimal consideration for the men who father children with teenagers. Our study aimed to profile the men who have children born to teenage mothers. Subject and methods We used South Africa’s R...

This paper provides insight into the relationship between child malnutrition and food security in two South African communities facing economic hardships. The research focused on Thulani, a township in Gauteng province, and Ga Masemola, a rural village in Limpopo province. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with mothers of children under five year...

The South African government instituted a countermeasure against COVID-19 in March 2020, which had a significant impact on many individuals, particularly the youth. However, there is a limited understanding of how household characteristics influenced adolescents’ behavioral changes and their adoption of preventive measures during the pandemic. This...

Background An essential aspect of human well-being is positive sexual health outcomes. However, the issue of adverse sexual health outcomes continues to be a major public health concern, particularly for women with disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Therefore, this current scoping review mapped studies conducted in the last twenty-nine years...

Addressing the sexuality of individuals with disabilities is important within the framework of global health and societal inclusivity. Despite comprising 16% of the world’s population, this demographic faces sexual autonomy inequality. Acknowledging this intersection is pertinent for achieving inclusive healthcare and upholding the commitments of t...

Background Risky sexual behaviour (RSB), particularly multiple sexual partnerships (MSP) continues to be a major public health concern and has been linked to the increasing STIs, including HIV/AIDS in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), suggesting that there is an association between contextual factors and multiple sexual partnering. However, i...

Background Contraception is an important public health initiative for addressing maternal health outcomes associated with unplanned pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths. Although contraceptive use has been on the rise globally, the observed increases in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are sub-optimal and vary among countries. In Zambia, drive...

The willingness to get vaccinated in South Africa is among the highest in the world, measuring at 76%. This study investigated the impact of individual risk beliefs, self-reported health status, and familiarity with someone with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the willingness to get vaccinated in South Africa. Data were obtained from the Wav...

This study examined the impact of COVID-19 on access to family planning for women of reproductive age (defined as ages 15 – 49) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Employing a scoping review methodology, we retrieved relevant literature spanning the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 eras, drawing information from major electronic databases. Inclusion criteria req...

Introduction Attitudes supportive of spousal violence retards developmental efforts worldwide, and in particular in patriarchal African settings. It is important to curb this behavior by designing preventative evidence-based policies. This study examines the acceptance of intimate partner violence among women residing in Eswatini and determines whe...

Climate change is a leading public health concern of the twenty-first century and has implications for population health globally. In this chapter, we present a general overview of what climate change is and how its direct and indirect effects are associated with disease prevalence and population health outcomes. In discussing these associations, e...

Globally, there have been considerable achievements towards HIV care and treatment. AIDS-related deaths have been reduced by 60% since the peak in 2004. Potentially, the fight against the HIV epidemic was made more difficult with the outbreak of COVID-19. Thus, this study examined the implications of COVID-19 in the utilization of HIV care and trea...

Introduction Child malnutrition is a persistent global challenge. It is the cause of nearly 45% of global child mortalities. To ensure positive child health outcomes, integrated multisectoral approaches among families, communities, and government systems to ensure positive child health outcomes are neccesary. Objectives This study identifies how d...

Background Understanding a woman’s future contraceptive needs and enhancing her chances of putting those needs into action depend heavily on her intentions to use contraceptive methods. However, there is little information about global perspectives of intention to utilise contraceptives among fecund sexually active women. Objectives This study exa...

Background. There has been significant progress with regards to winning the fight against HIV globally, particularly due to the introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART). COVID-19 threatened to derail gains in the fight against HIV. As we have started to see with studies on COVID-19 and HIV, there is a need to "provide an in-depth view" in under...

Access and utilisation of sexual and reproductive health services remain an important component in averting adverse sexual and reproductive health outcomes. However, the unprecedented emergence of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) left most of these services disrupted in Africa. Thus, this protocol study seeks to conduct a systematic review a...

The survival of children who are raised in kinship care is largely influenced by the way their primary caregivers manage their family dynamics. Although research has focused on the effects of family structure and other extended kin effects on various child health outcomes, it remains largely unknown how kin caregivers' family functioning influences...

Background Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), including hormonal implants and intrauterine devices, are highly effective pregnancy prevention methods. Aside its advantages over other hormonal methods, LARCs are cost-effective, easy to maintain, and have a low risk of non-compliance-related method failure. Besides, LARCs are also relativ...

Purpose In a country that is marred by an excessively high unemployment rate, there is a need for policymakers to prioritise entrepreneurship in South Africa. The study aims to explore the determinants of self-employment among the youth in South Africa and in the process answer the following question: Who are the self-employed youths in South Afric...

Background: Adolescent maternal healthcare utilisation is low in Nigeria, and little is understood about the pregnancy experiences and drivers of maternal healthcare utilisation among of adolescent girls. This study investigated the pregnancy experiences and maternal healthcare utilisation among adolescent mothers across Nigeria. Methods: The st...

Multilevel modelling has become a popular analytical approach for many demographic and health outcomes. The objective of this paper is to systematically review studies which used multilevel modelling in demographic research in Africa in terms of the outcomes analysed, common findings, theoretical rationale, questions addressed, methodological appro...

Multiple caregiving arrangements have become common for childcare globally, and South Africa is no exception. Previous childcare studies mainly focused on the caregiver and household characteristics. Evidence on the influence of childcare on malnutrition is sparse. This study aimed to examine the relationship between exposure to secondary and multi...

Background: Closing the gap of unmet needs for family planning (FP) in sub-Saharan Africa remains critical in improving maternal and child health outcomes. Determining the prevalence of unmet needs for family planning among married women in the reproductive age is vital for designing effective sexual reproductive health interventions and programme...

Among studies of factors driving fertility transitions, the cumulative children ever born (CEB) has been treated as the dependent variable in multivariable models. Some of these studies have cited total fertility rates (TFRs) in their rationales for investigating the determinants of fertility transition. However, CEB and TFR (which are computed fro...

The impacts of gender relations (GR) on reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have received little attention. Virtually non-existent are studies that take cognizance of the socio-cultural diversity of SSA countries in assessing the impacts. Using Demographic and Health Survey data from Namibia, Kenya and Nigeria, this study investigated w...

The low uptake of maternal healthcare services (MHS) in Nigeria is implicated in the country's poor maternal health outcomes. In northern Nigeria where these outcomes are poorest, not much is known about the contribution of violence within unions on married women's uptake of MHS. Using data on antenatal care (ANC) utilisation and place of delivery,...

Background Emerging evidence from high income countries showed that the COVID-19 pandemic has had negative effects on population and reproductive health behaviour. This study provides a sub-Saharan Africa perspective by documenting the social consequences of COVID-19 and its relationship to fertility preference stability and modern contraceptive us...

Beside age, underlying comorbidities and availability of sanitation facilities, individual health beliefs and behaviour are critical in combating the sustained prevalence of Covid-19. Behaviour has, however, been shown to be consistent but could be context dependent based on the individual's beliefs. To investigate whether or not indi-viduals' prot...

Introduction: poor maternal health outcomes remain a major public health issue in Nigeria. These have been shown to be affected by the low level of utilization of maternal healthcare services. This study investigates the levels of gender relations (GR) among Nigerian women and how these influence their utilization of maternal healthcare services. T...

Background Despite national and international commitments and efforts to prevent risky sexual behaviours, a high proportion of young people in South Africa are engaged in risky sexual behaviour. However, most efforts are currently directed toward addressing individual-level factors at the expense of not addressing neighbourhood-level determinants s...

Despite the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases in South Africa, there remains a dearth of nationally representative geographic analysis of the prevalence and risk factors of these diseases. The study, therefore, examines the spatially varying prevalence and risk factors of non-communicable diseases in South Africa. Data was from the...

How do young people interpret virginity loss, and does saving sex for marriage have any socially constructed benefit for marriage? This study answers this question using data obtained from a peer-led Facebook group with more than 175,000 participants, mostly in African countries, particularly Nigeria. A reflexive thematic analysis was used to analy...

The Handbook of African Demography is an edited volume on various aspects of demographic research conducted by African and Africanist scholars working in the field of African demography. This chapter introduces the background to the handbook and provides highlights of the various topics covered in the handbook. Themes covered in this 45-chapter boo...

The population structure of a society has implications for the development of that society. Current statistics show that Africa has a population in excess of 1.3 billion, growing at an annual rate of 2.51%, with a dependency ratio of 78.1 per 100 working population, 47 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, a life expectancy of 62.3 years, net migrat...

Background The risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is related to women’s sexual attitudes, beliefs, and power dynamics within marriages in developing countries. Despite the interventions towards improving women’s sexual health and well-being, women are disproportionately affected...

African demography has come of age. Over 50 years, the discipline has grown exponentially in the number of training and research institutions, specialist experts and academic output, all with an aim of addressing the enormous demographic challenges faced by the continent. The book draws on old and emerging analytical tools to explore the relationsh...

Household habitat conditions matter for diseases transmission and control, especially in the case of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). These conditions include availability and adequacy of sanitation facilities, and number of persons per room. Despite this, little attention is being paid to these conditions as a pathway to understanding the transmi...

Background The use of social media for sexual health communication is gaining intense discussion both globally and in Africa. Despite this reality, it remains unclear whether and how young African adults use digital innovations like social media to access sexual health information. More importantly, the unique properties of messages that increase m...

Background: Closing the gap of unmet needs for family planning (FP) in sub-Saharan Africa remains critical in improving maternal and child health outcomes. Determining the prevalence of unmet needs for family planning among married women in the reproductive age is vital for designing effective sexual reproductive health interventions and programmes...

Background: Closing the gap of unmet needs for family planning (FP) in sub-Saharan Africa remains critical in improving maternal and child health outcomes. Determining the prevalence of unmet needs for family planning among married women in the reproductive age is vital for designing effective sexual reproductive health interventions and programmes...

Background: The relationship between neighbourhood characteristics and youth involvement in risky sexual behaviour such as early sexual debut and multiple sexual partnerships is well established in the literature. However, there are very few empirical studies using Demographic and Health Surveys to unpack the nature of this relationship in Africa....

Background Reduction in ideal number of children has been suggested as a necessary precursor for fertility decline especially in high fertility countries of Western and Central Africa. In this study, we explored the social contexts of fertility desires by documenting the effects of individual, household as well as contextual characteristics among y...

IntroductionThe Nigerian population policy targeted a 30.2% prevalence of modern contraceptives among its population by the year 2015. In spite of the widespread knowledge of contraceptive use among the population, the prevalence stood at 12% in 2018. This study, riding on several previous studies on the determinants of contraceptive use in Nigeria...

Globally, studies on gender-based violence and domestic violence have advocated for female empowerment to counter violence. Zimbabwe is among countries that have called for female empowerment as a remedy; however, the widespread violence against females persists largely perpetrated by males. This study examines whether female empowerment is associa...

Introduction Diverse literature on sexual health promotion using social media suggests that increasing information reach and interaction are crucial. This study integrated the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to model the predictors of young adults’ behavioural intention to use and interact with sexuality education on soci...

Background Appropriate health-seeking practices may have a positive influence on child survival, particularly when practiced by kin caregivers of children who are below the age of 5 years. While literature has shown that children who are raised in kinship care often present with poor health outcomes and often have unmet healthcare needs, the health...

This study examined the influence of place of residence on sex preference as a predictor of marital dissolution in Nigeria. It also appraised the mediation of socio-demographic factors on the relationship between sex preference and marital dissolution. Data were sourced from the 2018 demographic and health survey of Nigeria. Analyses involved the u...

A considerable number of married women in sub-Saharan African countries are childless and may be likely to engage in marital infidelity to avoid social stigma, economic insecurities, and other debilitating experience associated with being involuntarily childless. This study sought to investigate the relationship between involuntary childlessness an...

The study examines the heterogeneous trajectories of depressive symptoms among men experiencing family changes and paying child maintenance in South Africa. A longitudinal study using the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) waves 1 to 5 (2008-2017) was conducted. The Latent Growth Curve Model (LGCM) was used to estimate the trajectory of growth o...

Background Death registration provides an opportunity for the legal documentation of death of persons. Documentation of deaths has several implications including its use in the recovery of inheritance and insurance benefits. It is also an important input for construction of life tables which are crucial for national planning. However, the registrat...

Abstract Fertility patterns in Nigeria are high and widely skewed away from the targets of the country’s population policy. As population growth is fueled by natural increase and migration, and with spatial disparities in fertility preferences among the different ethnic groups in Nigeria, this study investigates the fertility behavior of ethnic mig...

This study examined selected correlates of timing and frequency of antenatal care visits among adolescent mothers aged 15–19 in Nigeria. Data from the women’s recode dataset of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys between 2003 and 2018 were pooled, with a sample size of 4,775. Multivariate data analysis was carried out using binary logistic r...

Background In spite of kidney disease (KD) as one of the eight leading causes of death in women and a chronic public health concern, little is known about women’s knowledge and risk perception of KD. We assessed knowledge and perception of KD risk among childbearing women in Lagos State, Nigeria.Methods Administering a pre-tested, structured questi...

Understanding fertility variation among women helps identify individuals and communities with high reproductive performance that slows fertility transition especially for African countries. The aim of this study was to investigate individual and community factors influencing lifetime fertility/children ever born (CEB) in Eswatini (formerly Swazilan...

South Africa houses 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's burden of HIV/AIDS, estimated at 25.7 million cases. To increase awareness among the population and encourage a behavioural change to stem its transmission, several HIV media communication programmes (HCP) have been instituted in the country. Findings on the efficacy of these programmes on HIV transmi...

Background The risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is related to women’s sexual attitudes, beliefs, and power dynamics within marriages in developing countries. Despite the interventions towards improving women’s sexual health and well-being, the risk of transmission of STIs which disproportionately affect women continues to...

For primary prevention of spousal violence which is highly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), an important empirical question is “how early in a marital relationship does spousal violence commence? In this study, we employed descriptive statistics, Kaplan-Meier method and accelerated failure time models to estimate prevalence of parental histor...

Background: Kidney disease (KD) is increasingly recognized as a major public health problem worldwide with rising incidence and prevalence. Early identification of KD risk factors will slow down progression to kidney failure and death. Objective: To determine the prevalence, risk-inducing lifestyle and perceived susceptibility among Nigerians in...

Introduction: private health facilities are important contributors to health service delivery across several low and middle income countries. In Nigeria, they make up 33% of the health facilities, account for more than 70% of healthcare spending and over 60% of healthcare contacts are estimated to take place within them However, their level of part...

Background: A considerable number of previous studies have examined the trends, correlates, and consequences of premarital childbearing among adolescents and young women in Africa. However, very little is known about whether and how soon single mothers have another premarital birth in sub-Saharan African countries. This study examines the timing o...

Contraceptive use in Nigeria has remained low despite the efforts of government and non-governmental agencies to increase its uptake. Most studies on contraceptive use have focused on individual-level determinants and evidence is sparse on the influence of social or community context. This study examines the influences of contextual factors on mode...

This study sought to investigate the determinants of current use of modern contraceptives beyond the individual level in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). Previous studies have overlooked the role of community characteristics such as socioeconomic development, women’s empowerment and fertility norms in shaping contraceptive use. Hierarchical structure...

This chapter assesses how children’s serious illness or disability affects the labour market participation of all adults living in a household. The chapter goes beyond the usual father–mother analyses and accounts for the context of developing countries characterised by an extended family structure. It uses the National Income Dynamics Study panel...

Several theoretical perspectives have influenced the study of family at various levels of abstraction. However, many demographic studies of the family in sub-Saharan Africa have not been anchored on any theoretical orientation. Given the relevance of theory in explaining why patterns and practices within a family are the way they are, this paper pr...

Family constitutes more than simple living arrangements, and these systems are of pivotal development importance in sub-Saharan Africa. The diversity of family structures and types in sub-Saharan Africa has warranted an examination of the various policies and laws in the region. This paper examines all policy and laws related to families in the Sou...

Demographic and anthropological research has juxtaposed the private and public benefits of a healthy marital dyad vis-à-vis the private and public costs of marital dissolution. In particular, the private costs of marital dissolution largely affect the psychological, socioeconomic, emotional, and physical health and well-being of millions of childre...

This book is a comprehensive analysis of the structure, determinants and consequences of changes in sub-Saharan African families, thereby representing an Afrocentric description of the emerging trends. It documents various themes in the sub-disciplines of family demography. The first section of the book focuses on philosophical understanding of Afr...

Background: Although identifying vulnerable groups is an important step in shaping appropriate and efficient policies for targeting populations of disabled people, it remains a challenge. This study aims to evaluate for the first time the comparability of the different disability measurements used in Cameroon. This is done by comparing them with t...

Background: Adolescents and young adults in South Africa are at increased risk of experiencing negative outcomes from early sex initiation due to the context they develop in. This study aimed at investigating trends and gender differences in early age at sexual debut. Methods: Data from the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS) of young adults' conducted...

Abstract Many studies of fertility have reported a wide range of factors to be important determinants. These determinants include proximate factors and male and female background variables. However, most of the research has been based on an analysis of cross-sectional fertility elasticities. Therefore, there are limited attempts to examine the temp...