Sexual violence increased by 1.1% between 2008 & 2022 -survey
Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in collaboration with Ghana Health Service (GHS) and other development partners have launched the 7th Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) in Accra.
The objective of the report is to achieve health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 targets which requires acceleration of efforts and investments
The main report of 2022 GDHS presents an updated statistics on basic demographic and health indicators.
The launch marks the beginning of a series of dissemination activities aimed to engage key stakeholders involved in policy decision-making, planning, monitoring, and evaluation.
Addressing participants at the event, the Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim highlighted on access and behaviour viewpoints and health improvements that are shared responsibility between individuals and the state.
He said, with respect to health seeking behaviour, for instance, about one-third (32.4%) of women 15 to 49 years visited a health facility or health provider in the 6months period preceding while one-fifth of men in this age range (20.4%) did so.
“There is evidence of retrogression of some health indicators over time. For instance, childhood vaccination coverage remains lower than in previous surveys”, he noted.
Prof. Annim indicated that, currently, 75% of children are vaccinated against all basic antigens, which is a decrease from 79% in the 2008 GDHS while 2022 GDHS also shows a slight increase in the percentage of children with no vaccinations from 1% in the 2008 GDHS to 2% in 2022.
“Sexual violence increased by 1.1 percentage points between 2008 and 2022“, he added.
He pointed out that, regional variations are stark across several health indicators and childhood mortality rates by region vary in range considerably.
“For example, regions with the highest under-5 mortality rates for the ten-year period before the survey are Oti and Savannah (72 and 63 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively), while Ahafo and Greater Accra regions have the lowest under-5 mortality rates (29 and 20 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively).”, he said.
From the GDHS report, he said, wealth and education remain key drivers in addressing health challenges at the individual level with examples of health indicators that increase with maternal education and household wealth quintile are malaria and stunting in children under 5 years while conversely obesity increases with education and wealth.
Based on the findings of the report, he noted that, it is evident achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 3 and 5 targets will require acceleration of efforts and investments.
The 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) was conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service, in collaboration with Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service and other stakeholders with funding from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other partners.
The data collected by the survey will support the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and programmes to improve population health and wellbeing, and reproductive, maternal and child health.
The report was jointly launched by Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, the Ghana Statistician; Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service; Dr. Zohra Balsara, USAID Ghana Health Ofce Director; and a representative of Prof. Francis Kasolo, WHO Ghana Representative.
Source: Eric Nii Sackey
