
Michael KunnujiUniversity of Lagos | Unilag · Department of Sociology
Michael Kunnuji
Doctor of Philosophy
Nigeria's 2024 Qualitative VASA of Maternal and U5 deaths; and gender-based inequities in Africa's creative sector.
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48
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
Education
May 2005 - January 2010
September 2001 - January 2003
September 2001 - January 2003
Publications
Publications (48)
In 2003, Nigeria adopted the Family Life and HIV Education (FLHE) sexuality education curriculum. Our analysis interrogates variation in sub-national implementation. We conducted 52 interviews with persons knowledgeable about the curriculum in three states—Kano, Lagos, and Niger—and reviewed publications on FLHE. In Kano, the socio-cultural context...
Background
Early childbearing comes at high health costs to girls, the children they bear, their future life chances and the larger society. Nationally representative data suggest variation in onset of childbearing across regions and states of the country. Yet, there is need for strong evidence on how background characteristics explain time to firs...
Abstract Background Nigeria’s child health profile is quite concerning with an infant mortality rate of 67 deaths per 1000 live births and a significant slowing down in progress towards improving child health outcomes. Nigeria’s 2018 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) suggests several bio-demographic risk factors for child death, including mother’...
Background
Nigeria’s under-five health outcomes have improved over the years, but the mortality rates remain unacceptably high. The qualitative component of Nigeria’s 2019 verbal and social autopsy (VASA) showed that caregivers’ health beliefs about causes of illnesses and efficacious treatment options contribute to non-use/delay in use of facility...
Recent calls for global health decolonization suggest that addressing the problems of global health may require more than ‘elevating country voice’. We employed a frame analysis of the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framings of both discourses and analyzed the implications of convergence or divergence of these frames for global health pra...
The current mpox outbreak has challenged previous understanding of the disease, with human-to-human transmission being a significant mode of transmission, particularly among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM). A knowledge gap exists on MSM’s mpox experiences in Nigeria’s restrictive sociolegal context. This study explored mp...
Background
Global re-emergence of the zoonotic viral disease, Mpox (Monkeypox) has drawn global attention, leading to its declaration as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by World Health Organisation (WHO) in July 2022. Nigeria is a spotlight identified for the viral disease outbreak, with attention drawn on its transmissio...
This study investigates the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) challenges and access to SRH services among internally displaced persons (IDPs) in two Nigerian states: Benue (North-central) and Kaduna (Northwest). The research focuses on understanding how different contexts and variation in the management of displacement in these contexts influenc...
Background:
Nigeria is a country with a high burden of TB with low treatment coverage and high TB mortality. TB stigma is a major barrier to accessing TB care and a challenge to an effective response. This study adopted the health stigma and discrimination framework of Stangl and colleagues to explore the drivers and facilitators of TB stigma, TB...
Millions of people have been displaced within or outside their countries. Disruptions associated with displacement often lead to transactional sex with dire social, sexual and reproductive health implications. A common driver of transactional sex is food insecurity among refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), yet IDP/refugee settings off...
The Nigerian government commenced large scale cash transfer program in 2017. We evaluated the socioeconomic impact of the cash transfer program (CTP) in Nigeria. Across six randomly selected states that had implemented the CTP for at least six months, qualitative inquiries were conducted among beneficiaries and program implementers. We utilized a p...
Background
‘Resilience’, ‘self-reliance’ and ‘increasing country voice’ are widely used terms in global health. However, the terms are understood in diverse ways by various global health actors. We analyse how these terms are understood and why differences in understanding exist.
Methods
Drawing on scholarship concerning ideology, framing and powe...
Self-reliance has been advanced by policy actors as an aspirational objective by and for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with evolution in framing over time. Most recently, it has been advanced by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in an organisational strategy titled the Journey to Self-Reliance (J2SR). This paper identif...
In Northeastern Nigeria 600,000 internally displaced girls and women need sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services. We examined the relationships between contraceptive use, menstrual resumption, and pregnancy and birth experiences among girls (ages 15-19) and young women (ages 20-24) in an IDP camp. Data are from a cross-sectional...
Background
Nigeria suffers from one of the world’s highest child mortality rates, with about 900,000 deaths in a single year, despite being classified as a middle-income country. Over the past few years, substantial efforts have been made to reduce child mortality, with under-five mortality declining by 31.6% between 1990 and 2018. However, this de...
Background
Nigeria has one of the highest under-five mortality rates in the world. Identifying the causes of these deaths is crucial to inform changes in policy documents, design and implementation of appropriate interventions to reduce these deaths. This study aimed to provide national and zonal-level estimates of the causes of under-five death in...
Adolescents (10-19 years) and young adults (20-24 years) constitute a significant population, accounting for an estimated 24% of the world’s 7.55 billion people (UN, 2017). People in this group are often the most vulnerable to negative reproductive maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH) issues such as STIs, including HIV infection,...
In humanitarian settings, ∼35 million girls and young women of reproductive age (15-24) are in urgent need of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services. Young women and girls in humanitarian contexts are particularly vulnerable to unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortion, gender-based violence, and early and forced marriage. We sou...
In 2011, the US state of Mississippi mandated its school districts to adopt a sexuality education curriculum. Approximately half of districts chose a more comprehensive abstinence-plus curriculum over an abstinence-only curriculum. To understand this outcome, we conducted a logistic regression analysis of school district curriculum choice among Mis...
The progress of African countries towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is uneven, with the Northern African countries and small island states taking the lead. Little is known about the influence of population size, growth, urbanization, age structure/dependency ratio on SDGs 1-3, which border on eradication of poverty, hunger...
The progress of African countries towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is uneven, with the Northern African countries and small island states taking the lead. Little is known about the influence of population size, growth, urbanization, age structure/dependency ratio on SDGs 1-3, which border on eradication of poverty, hunger...
Background:
The persistently high and stalled total fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa, including in Nigeria, calls for new efforts towards fertility reduction. Most efforts on fertility desire in sub-Saharan Africa have focused either on individual men or women with little focus on couples as a unit of analysis. Moreover, the influences of different...
There is mixed evidence and lack of consensus on the impact of economic development on stunting, and likewise there is a dearth of empirical studies on this relationship in the case of sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, this paper examines whether economic growth is associated with childhood stunting in low-income and middle-income sub-Saharan African count...
A paradox in the demographic and epidemiological transitions in sub-Saharan Africa is that as population growth has increased, the rates of infertility have also increased, due to higher rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and earlier age at initiation of sexual intercourse. The majority of married couples desire to have their own biolo...
Intimate partner violence (IPV), as the most common form of violence against women, is recognised as a fundamental violation of women’s human rights and a significant public health concern worldwide. IPV is also a widespread phenomenon in Africa where the associated health challenges can be particularly serious due to fragile healthcare systems. To...
The book chapter explains the complex interplay of migration, terrorism and border security. It shows how porous borders and the ECOWAS free movement Protocol encourage international migration into Nigeria. It further shows how the majority of migrants experience social exclusion and are easy to be influenced by radical teachings that contribute to...
Background:
Proponents have promoted sexuality education as a means of empowering adolescents, yet it has been thwarted in many low and middle-income countries. Nigeria represents an exception. Despite social opposition, the government in 1999 unexpectedly approved sexuality education policy. Since then, implementation has advanced, although effic...
Mississippi and Nigeria are two socially conservative places unlikely to prioritise sexuality education. Nonetheless, Mississippi passed a bill in 2011 mandating all school districts to offer sexuality education, and Nigeria approved a national sexuality education curriculum in 2001. To identify the factors that drove the process of prioritisation...
The importance of demographic data in development planning cannot be overemphasized. Demographical data such as population size, age/sex structure, growth and distribution are essential in development, design and implementation of any sustainable development. This paper examines the population growth and dynamics in Nigeria and emphases the fact th...
Victims of domestic violence (DV) are more often than not, women and children. However, studies have shown that men are also victims of DV. The main objective of this article is to assess the predictors of DV against men in Nigeria. Data were generated from the 2013 NDHS. Using SPSS version 21 and multivariate logistic regression analysis, the find...
This study set out to document the prevalence and predictors of sexual intercourse with persons below the age of consent (statutory rape) and outright sex without consent (rape) among out-of-school adolescents in an urban slum in Lagos, Nigeria. Data gathered from a survey of 480 participants were employed. About 14% and 35% of the participants had...
Research has documented the connection between poor waste management and the contamination of ground and surface water across the globe and in Lagos in particular. This makes access to improved sanitation and water central to the pursuit of a good quality of life. This paper set out to explore variations in access to improved sanitation and water a...
Gender-based domestic violence (DV) comes at great costs to the victims and society at large. Yet, many women hold the view that intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is appropriate behavior. This study aimed at exploring the nexus of experience of different forms of DV and acceptance of IPV as appropriate behavior. Using data from a survey...
Research has shown that in countries such as Nigeria many urban dwellers live in a state of squalour and lack the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter. The present study set out to examine the association between forms of basic deprivation - such as food deprivation, high occupancy ratio as a form of shelter deprivation, and inadequate c...
This chapter provides an alternative to theories based on Western concepts on the character of the political class in Nigeria. It develops a coinage, the ‘crocutan’ that typifies the African ruler in character.
Reproductive health is an essential aspect of the wellbeing of adolescents. Therefore reproductive health knowledge and sexual behaviour deservedly attract the attention of researchers, programme planners and policy implementers working with young people. Yet in Nigeria, little is known about the effect of migration status on reproductive health kn...
Available data on youth sexuality suggest that many young people are sexually active and a significant proportion of them are involved in risky sexual activities such as unprotected sex and multiple sexual partnerships. Some studies suggest that poverty is a determinant of involvement in risky sexual activities while other studies maintain that the...
The study draws empirical evidence from adolescents (aged 10 to 19 years) and young adults (20 to 24 years) who use the Internet in exploring the relationship between two sets of independent variables - background characteristics and context of Internet use and two sets of dependent variables - unsolicited exposure to online materials with sexual c...
As internet penetration surges in different parts of the world, access to a wide range of subject matters also increases. Matters of sexuality are no exceptions. While there is ample empirical evidence that youths seek knowledge about sexuality, and get involved in sexually stimulating and/or gratifying activities on the internet, the relationship...
Several studies have documented how the sexual activities of young people and the social context in which these activities take place heighten youth susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. There are contrasting findings on the role of parent-child communication (PCC) in shaping young people's sexual behaviour. This paper p...
The uprisings that rocked the Republic of Liberia beginning in the last quarter of the twentieth century constitute a resounding case in point in studies of protest and revolution. Although it is easy to call attention to the proximate contributory factors in explaining the origin of what some have described as a complex political emergency in Libe...
The Nigerian state is heterogeneous. Despite some very sharp differences, certain values are common to all parts of the country. This paper focuses on one of such values with a view to assessing its role in bringing the Nigerian society to its present state. The value of attention is the value of pronatalism, which is here defined as beliefs and pr...
Whereas the trafficking of persons from several peripheral states to the west for ignoble purposes has attracted much attention from governments and non-governmental organizations across the globe, its replication at the local level is often ignored. The use of minors for domestic chores which often involves monetary exchange confers on the victims...