CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 12Menstrual Health and DisordersReproductive Health and ContraceptionHypothalamic control of reproductive hormones

Wealthy, urban, educated. Who is represented in population surveys of women’s menstrual hygiene management?

Open access
Hennegan, Julie, Shannon, Alexandra K, Schwab, Kellogg J, On behalf of PMA2020 investigators·2018·Reproductive Health Matters
DOI 10.1080/09688080.2018.1484220PMC PMC7745112
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Inadequate menstrual hygiene presents a barrier to women's dignity and health. Recent attention to this marginalised challenge has resulted in the first national assessments of menstrual practices. Intuitively, surveys require women to have had a recent menses to be eligible. This study seeks to determine if there are demographic differences between women who are eligible and ineligible to answer questions about their menstrual hygiene during these assessments. Secondary analyses were undertaken on nationally or state representative data collected by the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 survey programme across eight countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda). Female respondents were included in the study and compared on whether they had a menstrual period within the past three months and thus were eligible to answer questions regarding menstrual practices. On average, 29% of surveyed women across samples were ineligible to be asked menstrual hygiene questions. Higher levels of education, wealth, and urban residence were associated with higher odds of eligibility. Young and unmarried women were also more likely to be eligible. Demographic differences between eligible and ineligible women were consistent across all countries. Wealthy, urban, and educated women are more likely to be eligible to answer survey questions about menstrual hygiene. While population surveys may be representative of menstruating women, proportions of menstrual hygiene practices reported underrepresent the experiences of more vulnerable groups. These groups are likely to have greater struggles with menstrual hygiene when they are menstruating.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/09688080.2018.1484220

Cites

15 of 15 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • In an analysis of data across eight countries (including India) from the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 survey programme, Hennegan et al (2018) found that women who were wealthy, urban, educated, young, and unmarried were more likely to be eligible to answer questions about menstruation, resulting in an underrepresentation of data from rural, older, less educated, and married women

    “In an analysis of data across eight countries (including India) from the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 survey programme, Hennegan et al (2018) found that women who were wealthy, urban, educated, young, and unmarried were more likely to be eligible to answer questions about menstruation, resulting in an underrepresentation of data from rural, older, less educated, and married women”

    From ’It’s like a burden on the head’: Redefining adequate menstrual hygiene management throughout women’s varied life stages in Odisha, India. (2019) · cites this paper as [70]

  • Outside of a few key papers that highlight the menstrual experiences of women in the workplace, emergency context, or vaginal bleeding throughout the life course, experiences of menstruation among adult women and outside of school settings remains underexplored.

    “Outside of a few key papers that highlight the menstrual experiences of women in the workplace, emergency context, or vaginal bleeding throughout the life course, experiences of menstruation among adult women and outside of school settings remains underexplored [38, 39, 43, 70].”

    From ’It’s like a burden on the head’: Redefining adequate menstrual hygiene management throughout women’s varied life stages in Odisha, India. (2019) · cites this paper as [70]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [4]Ministry of Water Supply Sanitation, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council. National policy consultation workshop on menstrual hygiene management. Nepal: Government of Nepal in collaboration with WSSCC; 2017 [cited 2018 Jan]. Available from: http://wsscc.org/resources-feed/national-policy-consultation-workshop-menstrual-hygiene-management/

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Hennegan, J., Shannon, A. K., Schwab, K. J., & On behalf of PMA2020 investigators
Affiliations
Johns Hopkins University (US)
Corresponding author
Hennegan, Julie
ORCID
Venue
Reproductive Health Matters
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2018-01
Volume
26
Issue
52
Pages
81-91
ISSN
  • 0968-8080 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-9576
DOI
10.1080/09688080.2018.1484220
PMC
PMC7745112
OpenAlex
W2883038993
Cited by
12
References
14
Citations by year
2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2
FWCI
1.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Reproductive Health Matters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (114805)
  • Giving Wings and Futura Foundations
  • The Osprey Foundation of Maryland
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Menstrual Health and Disorders
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Hypothalamic control of reproductive hormones
Keywords
menstrual hygiene management, menstrual practices, demographic differences, women's health, vulnerable populations, wealth, urban residence, unmarried young women
MeSH terms
Developing Countries, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Hygiene, Income, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Menstruation, Urban Population, Menstrual Hygiene Products

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review