Background Malawi is one of the countries in SSA with the highest TFR. This study aimed to explore factors associated with modern contraceptive use and intention to use contraceptives among women of reproductive ages (15–49 years) in Malawi. Methods The study used secondary data from 2015 to 16 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS) dataset. Logistic regression models were used to derive adjusted odd ratios as the measures of association between need, predisposing and enabling factors, and contraceptive use and the intention to use contraceptives among women. The sample constituted 24,562 women who were successfully interviewed during the MDHS. All comparisons are considered statistically significant at 5% level. Results Overall 54.8% of women were currently using contraceptives, while 69.1% had the intention to use contraceptives. The odds of contraceptive use were significantly low among, women aged 15–19 years, 20–24 years, 25–29 years, 30–34 years, 35–39 years and 40–44 years compared to women aged 45–49 years; women of Tonga ethnic group (OR = O.60, CI = 0.43 0.84) compared to women of Nyanga ethnic group; women from poor households (OR = 0.78, CI = 0.68–0.90) and middle income households (OR = 0.84, CI = 0.74–0.95) compared to women from rich household. Nonetheless, women with no past experience of terminated pregnancy (OR = 1.50, CI = 1.34–1.68) were more likely to use contraceptives compared to women with past experience of terminated pregnancy. Similarly, Women with primary education (OR = 1.56, CI = 1.16–2.09) and secondary education (OR = 1.39, CI = 1.04–1.85) were more likely to use contraceptives compared to women with higher education. While the odds of intending to use contraceptives were significantly high with age only thus among women aged 15–19 years, (OR = 15.18, CI = 5.94–38.77); 20–24 years (OR = 16.77, CI = 7.46–37.71); 25–29 years (OR = 6.75, CI = 3.16–14.45); 30–34 years (OR = 7.75, CI = 3.61–16.65) and 35–39 years (OR = 5.05, CI = 2.29–11.12) compared to women aged 45–49 years. Conclusion As direct policy measure; information, education and communication programmes on family planning among poor and middle income women, and all women in reproductive ages should be strengthened.

Background The debate on socioeconomic inequalities in health dominates the research and policy agenda of many countries. The prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is on the rise in recent years in Botswana. As a prevention and policy effort, the study provided an empirical evidence on socioeconomic inequalities in NCD risk factors in Botswana. Methods Data used in this study was derived from a cross sectional survey on chronic non communicable diseases in Botswana conducted in 2016. The survey adopted a multistage sampling design and a sample of 1178 participants (males and females) aged 15 years and above was selected in both urban and rural areas of Botswana. The inequality analysis was conducted employing decomposition analysis using ADePT software version 6. Logistic regression models were used to show the association between NCD risk factors and socioeconomic status using SPSS version 25. Results Concentration indices showed that poor physical activity (CI = 0.0546), alcohol consumption (CI = 0.1859) and overweight/obesity (CI = 0.038) were more concentrated among the non-poor while daily smoking (CI = − 0.0308) and poor fruit/vegetable consumption (CI = − 0.1909) were more concentrated among the poor. Wealth status was observed to be the leading contributor to socioeconomic inequality for daily smoking, poor fruit/vegetable consumption, overweight/obesity and poor physical activity. Education was the leading contributor to socioeconomic inequality for alcohol consumption. Conclusions Findings in this study indicate the need for concerted differential efforts to address the needs of the poor and non-poor in order to reduce NCD risk factor inequalities. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7405-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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