Abstract

Improving housing sector in rural areas is important to improve health status of under-five children. Propensity score matching using nonparametric kernel estimates is used to examine the effect of improving rural structure of houses in rural Sudan and provide them with services like access to clean piped water, sanitation on improving under-five children health. The prevalence of diarrhoea and cough in rural Sudan are used as measures of health outcome and data from the Sudan Household Health Survey in 2010 is used. Our results show that providing houses with piped water can reduce prevalence of diarrhoea and cough by 22 and 24 percentage points, respectively. Gas cooking fuel reduces the prevalence rates by 26 and 29 percentage points, respectively. Construction materials of walls have strong impact on reducing the prevalence of both illnesses. We recommend that the quality of piped water should be observed and maintained in good standard to ensure that clean water is supplies to the household sector. Developing the housing sector in the rural has many advantages in improving early childhood health in Sudan and it should be one of the priorities of the government.

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