Suchergebnisse

Research on the determinants of condom use in sub‐Saharan Africa has focused on the personal characteristics of individuals and, more recently, on community characteristics such as levels of development and of contraceptive availability. Two additional community characteristics, however—the restraining influence exerted by social networks and traditional community institutions (both theorized to decline with population growth) and the degree of interpersonal communication concerning HIV/AIDS — should also be factored into research. This study uses data from the 2003 Zambia Sexual Behaviour Survey and other surveys to conduct multilevel analyses to assess the influence of each of these various characteristics on condom use in Zambia. The results show that condom use increases with interpersonal communication concerning HIV/AIDS, community infrastructural development, and access to condoms, and decreases with population growth rate and density. The findings suggest that condom‐promotion efforts should be attentive to community‐level social norms, population trends, and informal social relationships and interpersonal communication.

This article examines the effect of family planning programs on reproductive attitudes and contraceptive use behaviors. It aims to investigate the degree to which family planning programs enable Africans to shift to western contraceptive use from traditional and null contraceptive practices. It also examines the impact of the programs for both men and women. Data from the 1988 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, the 1988–99 Ghana Living Standards Survey, and the 1988 Ghana Population Census are used. Categorical data analysis techniques are used to analyze these data. This study finds that access to family planning services is associated with reduced family size preferences, increased approval of family planning, and knowledge of, and desire to use, contraception among both men and women in rural Ghana. As Ghana, like many parts of rural Africa, is a highly underdeveloped and pro-natalist area, this article concludes that family planning programs have the ability to influence reproductive attitudes and behavior, even under conditions of limited development.

Shows, in detail, how many African countries have concentrated on prevention of HIV through changing their citizens sexual behaviours with Ghana being spotlighted. Posits that Ghana is at the mid‐stage of the epidemic and uses data to explain this. Uses tables to show the lack of knowledge, by the citizens of Ghana, to AIDS prevention. Concludes that this study has tried to resolve two major problems in AIDS prevention: 1, specific nature of items of knowledge and behaviour influenced by mass media; and 2, neglecting control for exposure to interpersonal communication channels, thereby playing an important part in AIDS information provision omission.

SummaryPostpartum sexual abstinence may be a major determinant of fertility and of maternal and child health in sub-Saharan Africa. This study examines the relationship between ethnicity and abstinence using data from the 1988 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey. There is considerable diversity in the length of abstinence although only for one ethnic group, the Mole-Dagbani and other Ghanaians, is abstinence, both actual and ideal, very long. Respondents in most ethnic groups believe their abstinence to be adequate. A key motivation for abstinence is the unwillingness to have sexual intercourse with nursing mothers. Education, urbanisation, changes in marriage patterns and religious traditions are major factors shaping the ethnic differentials in abstinence. In comparison to breast-feeding, abstinence appears to have relatively little impact on the length of the birth interval and, for Ghana, has relatively few implications for fertility and child health.