Availability of Health Care Facilities and Early Fertility in Kenya

Aurora Angeli, Università di Bologna
Angelina Mazzocchetti, Regione Emilia-Romagna
Carla Pezzulo, Università di Bologna
Rosella Rettaroli, Università di Bologna

Kenya still presents one of the highest African early fertility levels. Focusing on adolescent women in Kenya, we intend: i) to investigate the geographical and socioeconomic determinants of early pregnancies; ii) to measure the impact of individual, family and community level determinants on maternal health behaviours. We use 2003 and 2008-09 KDHS Surveys. We combine the Global Positioning System locators, allowing us to known the geographical position of the primary sampling territorial units, with those provided by the Kenya Medical Research Institute containing data on the distribution of Health Facilities for 2005. Their diffusion throughout developing countries represents a key factor to protect women’s health during pregnancy and delivery. We perform a multilevel approach to study the effect of individual, household and community factors on young women’s propensity to adopt a safe maternal health care behavior, considering the availability and the accessibility of health care facilities.