Individual and contextual factors associated with disposal of children's stools in Papua New Guinea: evidence from the 2016-2018 demographic and health survey

Proper sanitation has been one of the topmost priorities on the global public health agenda. In the past few decades, sanitation programs targeting households have often paid little attention to the disposal of children's stools. We assessed the individual and contextual factors associated with disposal of children's faeces in Papua New Guinea. The data used for this study forms part of the 2016-2018 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS). For this study, we focused on women with children less than five years (n = 2095). Both descriptive and inferential analyses were carried out. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data, using frequency counts and percentages. The inferential analysis used multilevel logistic regression models to investigate the individual and contextual factors associated with disposal of children's stools. These models were presented as adjusted odds ratio (AORs), together with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Statistical significance was set at p