L’influence du contexte urbain et social sur les comportements des femmes lors de leur grossesse et après leur accouchement, en périphérie de Vientiane (RDP Lao)

Abstract

The objective of this article is to study in the suburbs of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, the influence of context on the behavior of women during pregnancy and after delivery. Data in relation to health care and traditional practices during pregnancy and following child-birth are collected from March to May 2005 in 41 areas (randomly selected) in the suburbs of Vientiane, from 300 women with children under 6 months. A logistic regression was then applied to analyze the behaviors by dissociating the effects of individual variables (education, occupation, income, age, number of children) from contextual variables in the place of residence (urban context and social context). After adjusting to individual characteristics, it was found that seeking health care at hospital is more frequent when social context is high, that period of exposure to fire is not linked to the place of residence and that the respect of traditional food restrictions is less frequent when urban context is high. It is therefore pertinent to integrate contextual variables in behavior analysis and to dissociate urban and social contexts.

Keywords

• behaviors
• food restrictions
• health seeking care
• Laos
• maternal health
• tradition