BackgroundSelf-reported health is a widely used measure of health status across individuals. As the ageing population increases, the health of the elderly also becomes of growing concern. The elderly go through life facing social, economic and financial hardships. These hardships are known to affect the health status of people as they age. The purpose of this study is to assess social and health related factors of self-reported health among the elderly in Ghana.MethodsA multivariate regression analysis in form of a binary and ordinal logistic regression were used to determine the association between socioeconomic, demographic and health related factors, on self-reported health. The data used for this study was drawn from the World Health Organization (WHO) Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) Wave 1.ResultsIn total, out of 2613 respondent, 579 (20.1%) rated their health status as poor and 2034 (79.9%) as good. The results showed that the odds of reporting poor health was 2.5 times higher among the old-old compared to the young old. The elderly with one or more than one chronic condition had the odds of 1.6 times and 2 times respectively, of reporting poor health. Engaging in mild to moderate exercise increased the chances of reporting poor health by 1.8 times. The elderly who had never worked in a lifetime were 2 times more likely to report poor health. In the same way, residents of Eastern and Western parts of Ghana were 2 times more likely to report poor health compared to those in the Upper West region. Respondents with functional limitations and disabilities were 3.6 times and 2.4 times respectively, more likely to report poor health. On the other hand, the odds of reporting poor health was 29, 36 and 27% less among respondents in the highest income quintiles, former users of tobacco and those satisfied with certain aspects of life respectively. Also, current alcohol users were 41% less likely to report poor health.ConclusionThe health status of the elderly is to an extent determined by the circumstances in which they are born, grow and live. The findings suggest that addressing social issues faced by individuals in youthful age will go a long way to achieving good health in the future. People with physical limitations and disabilities are most vulnerable to unmet healthcare needs and support system from government, policy makers and family.

Background: Progress made in the control of malaria vectors globally is largely due to the use of insecticides. However, success in the fight against malaria has slowed down or even stalled due to a host of factors including insecticide resistance. The greatest burden of the disease is felt in Africa, particularly Nigeria. Unfortunately, adequate information on insecticide resistance is lacking in many parts of the country, particularly the SouthEast Zone. Hence, this study aims to bridge the information gap in the Zone. Methods: The study was conducted from April to December 2016. Anopheles gambiae (s.l.) larvae and pupae were collected from one community each, in the five states of the SouthEast Zone and reared to the adult stage. The adults were subjected to bioassays for insecticide resistance in accordance with the World Health Organization test procedures, across the four classes of insecticides used in public health. The mosquitoes were also subjected to molecular identification to the species level, and genotyped for West African knockdown resistance mutation (L1014F) and insensitive acetylcholinesterase-1 resistance mutation (G119S). Results: The mosquitoes were susceptible (100%) to bendiocarb but resistant to pirimiphos-methyl (39.6%), deltamethrin (57%) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) (13%). Molecular analysis revealed that only An. gambiae (sensu stricto) was found in all the states except for Ebonyi, where only Anopheles coluzzii was present. High frequencies (0.6-0.9) of the L1014F mutation were found across the zone. The L1014F mutation was significantly higher in An. gambiae (s.s.) than in An. coluzzii (P < 0.0001). A relatively low frequency (0.2) of the G119S mutation was found in An. coluzzii, and only in Ebonyi State. Conclusion: The results show that mosquitoes collected from the SouthEast Zone of Nigeria were resistant to all insecticides used, except for bendiocarb. The presence of L1014F and G119S resistance mutations reported in this study calls for urgent attention to stop the growing threat of insecticide resistance in the country.

Addressing poverty and gender inequality is one of the fundamental targets of the sustainable development goals.Access to finance, however, has been identified as one of the ways to reduce poverty and gender inequality. The main focus of this study, therefore, is to ascertain the impact of access to formal credit on enterprise performance. The study uses Nigerian Enterprise Surveys data for 2010 to construct a direct measure of credit constraint. From propensity score estimations, the results show that access to formal credit matters and has significant impact on enterprise performance indicators. Firms that are credit constrained have significantly lower output per worker, capital per worker, employment of labour and investment in fixed assets for expansion compared to firms that are not credit constrained. This is more pronounced for women-owned enterprises after adjusting for bias in the estimations and controlling for sampling weights. This suggests that one way to support the growth of enterprises in Nigeria is to make access to formal credit less stringent. Also, government and monetary authorities should support credit expansion policies for medium and small enterprises in Nigeria.Notes: Ã indicates significance at 10%, ÃÃ indicates significance at 5% level of significance. Both the kernel and nearest-neighbour estimators were estimated by considering the sampling weights. The kernel estimator was estimated through the Stata command pscore by Becker and Ichino (2002) (after modifying the original routine in order to take into account the sampling weights); the nearest-neighbour estimator was estimated through the Stata command nnmatch by Abadie et al. (2004). Source: Authors' computations.

The study analyses how remittances to Nigeria affect the labour supply of recipients using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and a Log‐Linear regression model, with data from the 2013 Nigerian General Household Survey. The PSM results show that for the entire sample, the difference between the average amount of labour supplied per week by those that receive remittances and the amount they would have supplied without remittances is insignificant. The marginal impact analysis also shows that, ceteris paribus, the average labour supply for all recipients is inelastic to remittances. The results from the sub‐group analysis, however, show that receiving remittances negatively affects the labour supply of the self‐employed in agriculture, teenagers and the elderly. These results led us to the recommendation that policies to increase the inflow of remittances should be encouraged but in tandem with programmes to educate farmers on the benefit of investing remittances received in their farming business.

Purpose Enhancing household consumption and reducing inequality are among the fundamental goals of many developing countries. The purpose of this study therefore is to disaggregate household consumption expenditure into food and non-food and, thus, decompose inequality into within- and between-groups. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts generalised entropy (GE) measures. Second, the study uses regression-based inequality decomposition to ascertain the determinants of inequality in food and non-food expenditure using household demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as covariates. Findings The results show that non-food expenditure is the major source of inequality in household consumption expenditure in both urban and rural areas with inequality coefficients of above 0.6 compared to about 0.4 for food expenditure. The decompositions also show that within-group inequalities for non-food and food expenditure are, respectively, 0.97 and 0.365 using the Theil index, while between-group inequalities for non-food and food are, respectively, 0.016 and 0.035. Furthermore, the regression-based inequality decompositions show that variables such as living in rural areas, household size, household dwelling and household dwelling characteristics account for the significant proportion of inequality in food and non-food expenditure. Originality/value The policy implication of the findings, among others, is that policies should focus on addressing inequality within rural and urban areas, especially with respect to non-food expenditure than in inequality existing between urban and rural areas. These non-food expenditures include expenditure in education, health, energy, accommodation, water and sanitation.