Samuel Gbemisola W, Ajayi Mofoluwake P, Idowu Adenike E and Ogundipe Oluwatomisin O
Background: Studies have shown that characteristics present in the neighbourhood where children are raised might likely influence the mortality risks of such children. Cooking fuel can be regarded as one of the environmental factors determined by the socioeconomic background of the household, but the nexus between this and the health outcome of under-five children had received little attention.
Objective: This study seeks to examine the levels and trends of source of cooking fuels among households in Nigeria as implied on under-five mortality.
Methods: The data used was the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS)-Child Recode file of 2003, 2008 and 2013. The method of analysis used was the descriptive approach which includes cross tabulation, charts and tables. The chi-square statistic was used to show the significance of the association between the variables of interest in the study.
Results: The percentage of U-5 children who lived in homes where wood was used as cooking fuel was about 80 percent. The findings from this study show that there was a highly significant relationship between type of cooking fuel and under-five mortality in Nigeria (P<0.001). The poorest and the poorer represented the highest percentage among the households that used wood and agric. crop/dung for cooking. Environmental factor such as type of cooking fuel is significantly associated to socioeconomic characteristics of the household where the child lives, some of which includes wealth status and place of residence as discussed in the result.
Recommendation and conclusion: The study found that, there has not been a major improvement in the source of cooking fuel in households where under-five children are raised and this contribute in determining their health outcomes. Therefore, the government of Nigeria needs to provide reliable power supply (electricity) for household consumption. Also, gas fuel must be made available and affordable for household consumption.
