Abstract
BackgroundSmartphones have rapidly become an important marker of wealth in low- and middle-income countries, but international household surveys do not regularly gather data on smartphone ownership and these data are rarely used to calculate wealth indices.MethodsWe developed a cross-sectional survey module delivered to 3028 households in rural northwest Burkina Faso to measure the effects of this absence. Wealth indices were calculated using both principal components analysis (PCA) and polychoric PCA for a base model using only ownership of any cell phone, and a full model using data on smartphone ownership, the number of cell phones, and the purchase of mobile data. Four outcomes (household expenditure, education level, and prevalence of frailty and diabetes) were used to evaluate changes in the composition of wealth index quintiles using ordinary least squares and logistic regressions and Wald tests.ResultsHouseholds that own smartphones have higher monthly expenditures and own a greater quantity and quality of household assets. Expenditure and education levels are significantly higher at the fifth (richest) socioeconomic status (SES) quintile of full model wealth indices as compared to base models. Similarly, diabetes prevalence is significantly higher at the fifth SES quintile using PCA wealth index full models, but this is not observed for frailty prevalence, which is more prevalent among lower SES households. These effects are not present when using polychoric PCA, suggesting that this method provides additional robustness to missing asset data to measure underlying latent SES by proxy.ConclusionsThe lack of smartphone data can skew PCA-based wealth index performance in a low-income context for the top of the socioeconomic spectrum. While some PCA variants may be robust to the omission of smartphone ownership, eliciting smartphone ownership data in household surveys is likely to substantially improve the validity and utility of wealth estimates.
Highlights
The use of household assets to construct wealth indices has become a common method to measure socioeconomic status (SES) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) using household survey data
This study was embedded within the Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna (CRSN)-Heidelberg Aging Study (CHAS), a cross-sectional household survey of older adults living in the Nouna department, which is located in northwest Burkina Faso near the border with Mali
In a cross-sectional sample of households in Nouna, Burkina Faso, we find that the inclusion of additional information on cell phone ownership leads to significant changes in the estimates of the wealth index
Summary
The use of household assets to construct wealth indices has become a common method to measure socioeconomic status (SES) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) using household survey data. Researchers in the fields of health, economics, education, and public policy rely on wealth indices in settings where income and expenditure data may be unreliable or where household expenditure data are too difficult or resource-intensive to collect. Studies in a wide variety of settings have shown that the wealth index is consistently associated with income, expenditure, educational attainment, and health outcomes [1,2,3,4]. Smartphones have rapidly become an important marker of wealth in low- and middle-income countries, but international household surveys do not regularly gather data on smartphone ownership and these data are rarely used to calculate wealth indices
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
