Looking for neighborhood effects on health behavior in African cities: the case of Ouagadougou through prenatal care use

Bassiahi Abdramane Soura, Institut Superieur des Sciences de la Population (ISSP)

It is well known that a part of individual behaviour could be explained by the neighbourhood effects. From the sociological point of view, this conception is mainly based on two assumptions that are social interactions within the neighbourhood and access to common places and services. One of the theoretical interests of researches concerning such topics is that they may provide an indication of the degree of interaction between different social strata within neighbourhoods. They can also highlight the relative importance of neighbourhood characteristics on the individual behaviour. With my interest in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), I would like to contribute in understanding neighbourhood effects on the health services use in African cities. Specifically, the paper is interested in prenatal visit and aims to dissociate neighbourhood effects from those of individual or family factors on the earliness of the first prenatal visit and on the number of prenatal visits realized during pregnancy.