Places Nigerians visited during COVID-19 government stay-home policy: evidence from secondary analysis of data collected during the lockdown.

Introduction: Compliance with the Government's lockdown policy is required to curtail community transmission of Covid-19 infection. The objective of this research was to identify places Nigerians visited during the lockdown to help prepare for a response towards future infectious diseases of public health importance similar to Covid-19. Methods: This was a secondary analysis of unconventional data collected using Google Forms and online social media platforms during the COVID-19 lockdown between April and June 2020 in Nigeria. Two datasets from: i) partnership for evidencebased response to COVID-19 (PERC) wave-1 and ii) College of Medicine, University of Lagos perception of and compliance with physical distancing survey (PCSH) were used. Data on places that people visited during the lockdown were extracted and compared with the sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all independent variables and focused on frequencies and percentages. Chi-squared test was used to determine the significance between sociodemographic variables and places visited during the lockdown. Statistical significance was determined by P<0.05. All statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS version 22. Results: There were 1304 and 879 participants in the PERC wave-1 and PCSH datasets, respectively. The mean age of PERC wave-1 and PCSH survey respondents was 31.8 [standard deviation (SD)=8.5] and 33.1 (SD=8.3) years, respectively.In the PCSH survey, 55.9% and 44.1% of respondents lived in locations with partial and complete covid-19 lockdowns, respectively. Irrespective of the type of lockdown, the most common place visited during the lockdown was the market (shopping); reported by 73% of respondents in states with partial lockdown and by 68% of respondents in states with the complete lockdown. Visits to families and friends happened more in states with complete (16.1%) than in states with partial (8.4%) lockdowns. Conclusions: Markets (shopping) were the main places visited during the lockdown compared to visiting friends/family, places of worship, gyms, and workplaces. It is important in the future for the Government to plan how citizens can safely access markets and get other household items during lockdowns for better adherence to stay-at-home directives for future infectious disease epidemics.

Does where mothers live matter? Regional variations in factors influencing place of child delivery in Nigeria.

Utilization of health care facilities for child delivery is associated with improved maternal and neonatal outcomes, but less than half of mothers use these for child delivery in Nigeria. This study investigated the factors associated with facility delivery in Nigeria, and their variation between the Northern and Southern parts of the country - two regions with distinct socio-cultural make-ups. The study included 33,924 mothers aged 15-49 who had given birth in the last 5 years preceding the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. Overall, higher age, being educated, being a Christian, being an urban resident, being exposed to mass media, making joint decisions with partner on health care, beginning antenatal visits in the first trimester and attending antenatal clinics frequently were found to be associated with improved use of a health care facility for child delivery. An average mother in Northern Nigeria had a 38% chance of having a facility-based delivery, whereas the likelihood in the South was 76%. When other factors were adjusted for, age and listening to the radio were significant predictors of facility-based delivery in the South but not in the North. In the North, Christians were more likely than Muslims to have a facility-based delivery, but the reverse was true in the South. Rural women in the South had a 16% greater chance of having a facility-based delivery than urban women in the North. The study results suggest that there is inequality in access to health care facilities in Nigeria, and the differences in the socio-cultural make-up of the two regions suggest that uniform intervention programmes may not yield similar results across the regions. The findings give credence to, and expand on, the Cosmopolitan-Success and Conservative-Failure Hypothesis.

The COVID-19 pandemic: Stay Home policy and exposure to risks of infection among Nigerians.

The global threat which continues to accompany SARS-CoV-2 has led to a global response which adopts lockdown and stays home policy as means of curtailing its spread. This study investigates compliance with the Stay Home policy and exposure to COVID-19 in Nigeria. A survey was conducted from April 4 to May 8, 2020 using a cross-sectional mixed-methods approach to elicit responses from 879 participants across six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Descriptive, χ 2, and multiple regression tests were used to analyze survey data using SPSS, whereas NVivo v12 was used for thematic analysis of qualitative data. States with complete lockdown had 72.4% of respondents complying fully with the policy compared with 44.2% of respondents in zones with the partial lockdown. Market places, classified as high-risk zones, were the most visited (n = 505; 71.0%). Though compliance was influenced by the nature of lockdown enforced (χ 2 = 70.385, df = 2; p < 0.05), being a female, a widow, and unemployed were associated with increased compliance. Exposure to COVID-19 was associated with being married, unemployed, and having no income. Fear, anxiety, and misperception play major roles in compliance. The authors conclude that compliance is not uniform and a more nuanced and targeted approach is required as the government continues to respond to the COVID-19 global pandemic.