Volume 45
October 2019

Religion and Use of Institutional Child Delivery Services: Individual and Contextual Pathways in Mozambique
Boaventura Manuel Cau, Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique Victor Agadjanian, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

First published online:

| DOI: https://doi.org/10.1363/45e7719
CONTEXT

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.

METHODS

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.

RESULTS

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).

CONCLUSIONS

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.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1363/45e7719

Author's Affiliations

Boaventura Manuel Cau is associate professor, Department of Geography, Eduardo Mondlane University, and the Center for Population and Health Research—both in Maputo, Mozambique. Victor Agadjanian is professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Guttmacher Institute.
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