Canonical Correlation Analysis of Health Status and Socio-Economic Characteristics of Rural Households in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

The study examines the patterns of linkage between households’ health status and their socio-economic characteristics in rural Akwa Ibom State using canonical correlation analysis. Data measuring nine socio-economic variables and six health measures were collected from 540 randomly sampled households in 90 villages using the Socio-Economic and Health Questionnaire (SHQ) as the main instrument of data collection. Though the households’ health and socio-economic profiles were found to be abysmally low, the result of the canonical correlation revealed three fundamental ways the peoples’ health status are linked to socio-economic characteristics. Three canonical functions representing three models were generated. The first canonical function (r1=0.99; p<0.05) demonstrate the link between respiratory health and housing condition; the second canonical function (r2=0.96; p<0.05) illustrates an inverse relationship between water-related diseases and household sanitation standard while the third canonical function (r3=0.93; p<0.05) indicated a strong reciprocal relationship between the peoples’ healthcare behavior and income/occupational structure. On the whole, it was concluded that rural households share a common variance on health and socio-economic status. The study therefore proposed a new paradigm for achieving accelerated and sustainable health standards for the rural population in developing countries that is hinged on total rural socio-economic transformation.Key Words: Rural, Health, Household, Correlation, Analysis, Socio-economi