Child Gender and Parental Reporting of Illness Symptoms in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ABSTRACT: AbstractThe overwhelming majority of evidence about the health of children in low- and middle-income countries is based on reports by parents. There is limited evidence on whether these reports suffer from systematic bias, particularly related to the gender of the child. We investigate differences in symptom reporting by child gender in a sample of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Data from 35 Demographic and Health Surveys and 10 Malaria Indicator Surveys conducted since 2005 were analyzed. Parental reports of child symptoms were compared for girls and boys. In a subsample of data from Nigeria, we also compared the accuracy of parental reports of fever between girls and boys. Then, potential explanations for observed reporting differences were explored. Finally, country-level relationship

SUBMITTER: Rockers PC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5392653 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature