Importance of risk factors associated with malaria for Sub-Saharan African children

Abstract

To assess the importance of malaria risk factors for children in sub-Saharan African countries. 61,292 children of 16 countries from DHS and MIS surveys were included in analysis. A regression model with analyse of variance and plots of mean decrease accuracy and mean decrease Gini indices were performed. The most important risk factor was the country and it contributed 52.33 % to the variance of the model. Wealth status of the child's family was the first socio-economic factor which contributed more to the difference of malaria risk among African children. There was no geographic factor among the five most important variables. Quantity of precipitation was the sixth most important factor. Our study has the potential for driving control effort in the fight against malaria in the continent which represent the majority of global malaria cases. The study indicates that, when implementing health policies, community characteristics must be taken into account.

Keywords: Malaria; Sub-Saharan Africa; geographically weighted regression; relative importance; risk factors.