Source and Use of Insecticide Treated Net and Malaria Prevalence

This study argues that different practices of sources from which households obtain their Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) determine the effect of ITN use on malaria prevalence. The study categorises the sources into those that include some sort of education about how to use the nets and those that do not and examines the effect of these sources on the relationship between ITN use and malaria prevalence in Ghana. A recursive bivariate probit estimation technique that addresses endogeneity between ITN use and malaria prevalence was used to analyse data on 2,908 under-five children from the 2011 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS). The descriptive results revealed that the proportion of ITN usage among children in households who acquired their ITNs from government, NGOs and Community Based Agents (CBAs) was higher than the proportion of usage among those who acquired their ITNs from private health centers, market, shops and street vendors that do not include education. The estimation shows that controlling for other socio-demographic factors, sleeping under ITN reduces the likelihood of experiencing malaria by 22 percent. Owners of ITNs will not use them to bring the expected reduction in malaria prevalence, unless the source includes education.