Skip to main content

Table 1 Measurement of individual- and community-level variables

From: Correlates of appropriate disposal of children’s stools in Malawi: a multilevel analysis

Individual-level factors

Description

Sex of the child

Male, Female

Age of the child (months)

≤ 5, 6–11, 12–17, 18–23

Maternal age (years)

15–24, 25–34, ≥35

Number of children ever had

1, 2, 3, 4+

Maternal educational level

No formal education, primary, secondary and higher

Wealth

The MDHS uses principal component analysis to score household items to calculate wealth. The scores are categorized into quintiles from poorest to richest. In this study, richest and rich were grouped as “rich” (upper 40%), middle remained the same (middle 20%), and poorest and poor were grouped as “poor” (lower 40%).

Employed

No, yes

Media exposure

No, Yes (Composite variable categorizing those that reported listening to radio, reading newspaper or watching television at least one a week as “yes” otherwise as “no”)

Religion

Catholics, protestants, Muslims and others

Water source

Unimproved, improved (Improved water source included piped water, boreholes or tube-wells, protected dug wells, protected springs, rainwater, and packaged or delivered water)

Sanitation type

Unimproved, improved (improved included flush toilets, piped sewer system, septic tank, flush/pour flush to pit latrine, ventilated improved pit latrine, pit latrine with slab, and composting toilet)

Community-level factors

 Residence

Urban, rural

 Region

Northern, Central, Southern

 Community wealth

Aggregated from individual-level wealth index defined as the proportion of women who were coming from rich households. The resultant score was categorized using tertiles as low, middle, high.

 Community education

Aggregated from individual-level maternal educational level defined as the proportion of women who had primary or above education. The resultant score was categorized using tertiles as low, middle, high.