Associate professor, Department of Geography, Eduardo Mondlane University, and the Center for Population and Health Research, Maputo, Mozambique,
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Int Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 2019 Oct 21;45:35-43. doi: 10.1363/45e7719.
Research on institutional child delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa typically focuses on availability and accessibility of health facilities. Cultural factors, including religion, that may facilitate or hinder the use of such services have not been well examined and remain poorly understood.
The relationship between religious affiliation and delivery in a health facility was explored using data from a household survey of 1,297 women aged 18-50 and a census of 825 religious congregations, both conducted in a predominantly Christian district in Mozambique in 2008. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were conducted to predict the likelihood of recent institutional delivery according to both individual religious affiliation and the concentration of religious congregations of certain denominations in the community of residence.
Approximately 63% of deliveries occurred in a health facility. The odds of such deliveries were lower among women who belonged to Apostolic churches or had no religious affiliation than among members of Catholic or mainline Protestant churches, net of other factors (odds ratios, 0.5 and 0.6, respectively). In addition, regardless of a woman's religion, the odds that she had an institutional delivery increased by 9% for each additional Catholic or mainline Protestant congregation in her community of residence (1.1).
Organized religion is associated with critical health outcomes in Mozambique and, potentially, in other Sub-Saharan African contexts. Policymakers should consider designing programs and interventions that promote the use of institutional delivery services among members of religious groups characterized by low use of these services and in areas where such religious groups have a strong presence.
撒哈拉以南非洲的机构分娩研究通常侧重于卫生机构的供应和可及性。文化因素，包括宗教，可能会促进或阻碍这些服务的使用，但这些因素尚未得到充分研究，也知之甚少。
利用 2008 年在莫桑比克一个以基督教为主的地区对 1297 名 18-50 岁妇女进行的家庭调查和 825 个宗教集会的普查数据，探讨了宗教信仰与分娩地点之间的关系。采用多水平逻辑回归分析，根据个人宗教信仰和特定教派宗教集会在居住地的集中程度，预测近期机构分娩的可能性。
约 63%的分娩发生在医疗机构。与天主教或主流新教教堂的教徒相比，属于使徒教会或无宗教信仰的妇女分娩的可能性较低（比值比分别为 0.5 和 0.6），其他因素除外。此外，无论妇女的宗教信仰如何，其居住地每增加一个天主教或主流新教教堂，她进行机构分娩的可能性就会增加 9%（1.1）。
有组织的宗教与莫桑比克的关键健康结果有关，而且可能与撒哈拉以南非洲的其他地区有关。政策制定者应考虑设计方案和干预措施，以促进在这些服务使用率低的宗教群体成员中以及在这些宗教群体存在的地区使用机构分娩服务。
