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Abdullah Nagi Alosaimi
University of Tampere, Finland
ScientificTracks Abstracts: J Nurs Res Pract
Background: Reliable measurement of Socioeconomic Status (SES) in health research requires extensive resources and can be challenging in low-income countries. We aimed to develop a set of maternal SES indices and investigate their associations with maternal and child health outcomes in rural Yemen.
Methods: We applied factor analysis based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) extraction to construct the SES indices by capturing household attributes for 7295 women of reproductive age. Data were collected from a sub-national household survey conducted in six rural districts in four Yemeni provinces in 2008-2009. Logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the associations between the SES indices and maternal mortality, spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, neonatal and infant mortality.
Results: Three SES indices (wealth, educational and housing quality) were extracted, which together explained 54% of the total variation in SES. Factor scores were derived and categorized into tertiles. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, higher tertiles of all the indices were inversely associated with spontaneous abortion. Higher tertiles of wealth and educational indices were inversely associated with stillbirth, neonatal and infant mortality. None of the SES indices was strongly associated with maternal mortality.
Conclusion: By subjecting a number of household attributes to factor analysis, we derived three SES indices (wealth, educational, and housing quality) that are useful for maternal and child health research in rural Yemen. The indices were worthwhile in predicting a number of maternal and child health outcomes. In lowincome settings, failure to account for the multidimensionality of SES may underestimate the influence of SES on maternal and child health.
Alosaimi Abdullah is Research Associate/Lecturer at Health Sciences department, Social Sciences School at the Tampere University, from Yemen. He is a professional of public health in maternal and neonatal child healthcare area. He received his M.D. from Faculty of Medicine & and Health Sciences, Sana’a University – Yemen and eventually earned his spot as director of Alashah Health District at Amran province. While, he was in this post he earned his high diploma in community medicine. After his four-year career as a director there, he decided it was time for a change of scenery and moved to Sana’a city, where he was offered to work as director of National Health Continuing Education Program at the Ministry of Public Health & Population in Yemen. In addition, he worked as a consultant in maternal and child healthcare and Nutrition with many international and local bodies. Later on in 2005, he made his master courses at Queens University, Ontario –Canada also he earned M.S.c. of Public Health from Umea University, Umea - Sweden. By mid of 2008, he Joint Unicef and earned his spot as health and nutrition officer in Yemen for 4 years. Recently he is doing his PhD at University of Tampere, Finland.
E-mail: abdullah.alosaimi@tuni.fi
+44 7915641605
