Table 2 List of the independent variables used in the study with their measurement descriptions
Level | Variables | Measurements |
|---|---|---|
Individual level variables | Age | The age of women categorized as 11–25, 26–40, 41–60, and > 60 |
Sex | Sex of the household head categorized as male and female | |
Education level | Educational attainment is categorized as uneducated, primary, secondary, and above | |
Marital status | The marital status of the household is categorized as married and not married | |
Family size | Categorized as 1–3, 4–6, and 7 and above | |
Media exposure | A composite variable obtained by combining whether a respondent listens to the radio, and watch television with a value of “0” if women were not exposed to at least one of the two media, and “1” if a woman has access/exposure to at least one of the two media [25] | |
Wealth index | The data sets contained a wealth index that was created using principal components analysis coded as poorest, poorer, middle, richer, and richest in the DHS data set. For this study, we recorded it in three categories poor (including poorer and poorest), middle and rich (includes richer and richest) | |
Access to a drinking water source | Basic drinking services: drinking water from an improved source, provided collection time is not more than 30 min for a round trip, including queuing [18]. On the other side limited drinking services: drinking water from an improved source for which collection time exceeds 30 min for a round trip, including queuing [18] | |
Community-level variables | Residency | Urban or rural based on where the household lives in the data set was used without change |
Region | The regions in sub-Saharan Africa were categorized as Eastern Africa, Central Africa, Western Africa, and Southern Africa | |
Countries income level | The countries income status was categorized as low income, lower middle income, and upper-middle-income country based on the World Bank List of Economies classification since 2019 [26]. World Bank calculated country income based on Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, which categorized as low income $1,025 or less; lower middle income, $1,026–3,995, upper middle income $3,996–12,375,and high income $12,375 or more [26] | |
DHS survey year | Survey year means the recent standard DHS data collection period of each country from 2010 to 2020. Categorized as the survey years 2010–2014 and 2015–2020 |