Bayesian random effects modelling with application to childhood anaemia in Malawi

ABSTRACT

Epidemiological studies in Malawi on child anaemia have neglected the community spatial effect to childhood anaemia. Neglecting the community spatial effect in the model ignores the influence of unobserved or unmeasured contextual variables, and at the same time the resultant model may under estimate model parameter standard errors which can result in erroneous significance of covariates. We aimed at investigating risk factors of childhood anaemia in Malawi with focus on geographical spatial effect.