Accelerating Progress Towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals: The Ghanaian Story
The data used for this paper is a combination of two datasets: The first was a cross-sectional study undertaken on 614 in-school children and adolescents aged 6-19 years in rural and urban Kumasi while the second study was a cross-sectional community-based survey investigating the social determinants of mental well-being of 672 children and adolescents (aged 6-17 years) in an urban inner-city community in Kumasi. Five (5) aligned SDG targets were identified from the study instruments— 3.4 Promote mental health; 4.1 completing school; 6.2 End open defecation; 9.0 Access to information communication technology and 5c. Enhance ICT to promote women empowerment. Potential accelerators from preliminary analyses were: Cognitive stimulation through active reading, Low student-teacher ratio, High Caregiver level of education, Access to safe water, and no relative poverty. Associations between accelerators and SDG targets were assessed using multivariate path analyses adjusting for sociodemographic covariates and multiple testing. Cumulative effects were tested by marginal effects modelling.
Information pertaining to 944 adolescents (mean age 12.31 ± 3.51years) was extracted from the the data source. Three (3) factors emerged as hypothesised accelerators: cognitive stimulation, low student-teacher ratio and no relative poverty. For three (3) of the SDG-aligned targets, a combination of two or more accelerators showed accelerator synergies: school completion, no open defecation and access to ICT. In all three potential accelerators provided association across four SDG aligned targets. The accelerator model has been further validated in this data set from Ghana. Robust interventions designed around these accelerators may represent the best opportunity for achieving the SDG goals, in Ghana.
Team:
Prof Olayinka Omigbodun (Department of Psychiatry and Provost of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria) (Project Lead)
Segun Ogunmola (Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria)
Adeola Afolayan (Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria)
Dr Rita Tamambang (Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria)
Dr Kwabena Kusi-Mensah (University of Cambridge & Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria)
Dr Tolulope Bella-Awusah (Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria & Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University College Hospital, Ibadan)
