Welcome!


Purpose of Blog:

This blog will be documenting my research concerning female literacy and related health improvements. My original project was to collect information and statistics from various sources and databases and create a cum
ulative source documenting the positive effect of female literacy on women and children’s health in developing African countries. Having completed this research paper, I am now maintaining this blog as a place to share my further findings on the subject of female literacy and its effects on health, etc.



Some quick facts:
Female literacy has been shown to have a positive effect on health because “educated women are more likely to be employed and to earn more than less-educated women” (Daniell & Mortensen , 2007, p. 278), “an extra year of girls’ education can reduce infant mortality by 5-10 percent” and “educated mothers are about 50 percent more likely to immunize their children than uneducated m
others are” (Herz & Sperling, , 2004, p. 4).


References:
Daniell, B., & Mortensen, P. (2007). Women and literacy. New York: Taylor & Francis Group.
Herz, B., & Sperling G. (2004). What works in girls’ education? New York: Council on Foreign Relations Inc.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Literature Review

I've recently done a review of all literature pertaining to the effects of female literacy on women and children's health. Here I'm going to post a portion of my review!


Literature Review

First, it is important to understand the documented effect of female literacy on public health in general. As I initially considered this project, I was thrilled to discover that there have already been a number of studies documenting of the effects of female literacy on health. These studies were performed in various locations around the world, however I have narrowed my review to several studies relating to Africa specifically. I've highlighted some of the exciting data and conclusions, to make for easy reading:

Literature Review

Barrett and Browne (1996) discuss the methods in which women’s education affects domestic hygiene practices and the use of health care services in a traditional agricultural village of Gambia. This discussion stems from the their survey of village mothers with and without formal education, with at least one child under the age of 5. Their study was given during the village’s rainy season, which is known for causing high morbidity rates. The results demonstrate, most importantly, that the village women with higher education were better able to understand health education messages (Barrett & Browne, 1996).

I was very impressed with the conclusions of Paul Glewwe, a senior economist for The World Bank (1999). After working, studying, and researching in Morocco, he summarized the relevance of female education effects on health in Morocco in three basic benefits. These three effects include: “(1) Formal education directly teaches health knowledge to mothers; (2) Literacy and numeracy skills acquired in school assist future mothers in diagnosing and treating child health problems; and (3) Exposure to modern society from formal schooling makes women more receptive to modern medical treatments” (p. 1). These conclusions aid in demonstrating how female literacy can specifically affect the health of both the educated mother and her children.

Spratt (1992) also discusses the positive impact of female literacy in Morocco, and discusses the great need for more literacy programs and educational institutions. Documented benefits of female literacy include fewer children per mother, fewer children lost to disease, and a greater use of modern health care practices (Spratt).

Another study, by McAllister and Baskett (2006), concludes with even more significant findings. Researchers were distressed by the fact that “approximately 600,000 women between the ages of 15 and 49 die each year” because of complications during pregnancy and childbirth—a figure that may be underestimated by as much as 25% (p. 984). They noted that countries who treated women as equals to men tended to have lower maternal mortality rates, while countries who allow women to be treated as second class citizens had very high maternal mortality rates. Education played a large role in the development of equity, and therefore they decided to further research the association between women’s education and health. Specifically, they performed polynomial regression analysis for 148 countries, and examined the impact of gender-related predictors, including “education, political activity, economic status, and health, and human development predictors [that] examined the relationship between women’s status, human development, and maternal mortality” (p. 983). After analyzing data from the 148 countries, researchers found that the combined enrolment ratio for females had a p-value of 0.004, which was a “significant and moderately powerful [predictor] of maternal mortality rates” (p. 985). Additionally, female education predictors explained about 50% of variance in data. They concluded, “Strategic investment to improve quality of life through female education will have the greatest impact on maternal mortality reduction” (p. 983, emphasis added). Of all the potential effects on maternal mortality, female education had the greatest association with and potential benefits toward maternal mortality rates.

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