Health and cultural factors associated with enrolment in basic education: a study in rural Ghana

This inter-disciplinary study compares the health status of school-age chil dren in Ghana, both enrolled and non-enrolled, and examines these results w ithin a wider socio-economic and socio-cultural context including kinship a nd livelihood. Children matched for age and sex who were not enrolled in Pr imary School were significantly shorter and more stunted than enrolled chil dren were, and 70% of all Primary school-age children were anaemic. Young c hildren from farming communities were significantly more undernourished tha n children from fishing communities. Adolescent non-enrolled boys were more heavily infected with Schistosoma haematobium, and were more likely to be anaemic than enrolled adolescent bays. The data indicate how health and hea lth related factors may influence and affect enrolment and how socio-econom ic indicators, livelihood, and kinship may also constrain enrolment and, in turn, affect child health. This study sheds light on the complex factors t hat may influence enrolment in education and provides novel data on the sim ilarities and differences,between the health of enrolled and non-enrolled c hildren in rural Ghana. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.