Zika virus incidence, preventive and reproductive behaviors: Correlates from new survey data

Climent Quintana-Domeque, José Raimundo Carvalho and Victor Hugo de Oliveira

Economics & Human Biology, 2018, vol. 30, issue C, 14-23

Abstract: During the outbreak of the Zika virus, Brazilian health authorities recommended that pregnant women take meticulous precaution to avoid mosquito bites and that women in general use contraceptive methods to postpone/delay pregnancies. In this article, we present new estimates on the Zika virus incidence, its correlates and preventive behaviors in the Northeast of Brazil, where the outbreak initiated, using survey data collected between March 30th and June 3rd of 2016. The target population were women aged 15–49 in the capital cities of the nine states of the Northeast region of Brazil. We find that more educated women were less likely to report suffering from Zika (or its symptoms) and more likely to report having taken precaution against Zika, such as having used long and light-colored clothes, having used mosquito repellent or insecticides, having used mosquito protective screens or kept windows closed, and having dumped standing water where mosquitoes can breed. In addition, more educated women were more likely to report being informed about the association between Zika and microcephaly and to avoid pregnancy in the last 12 months. Finally, we also find that women who reported experiencing sexual domestic violence in the last 12 months were more likely to report suffering from Zika.

Keywords: Zika; Education; Domestic violence; Information; Prevention; Survey data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X18301060
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:30:y:2018:i:c:p:14-23

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2018.04.003

Access Statistics for this article

Economics & Human Biology is currently edited by J. Komlos, Inas R Kelly and Joerg Baten

More articles in Economics & Human Biology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().