Abstract:
The study examined the relationship between household income and malaria control
measures and practices in Bagamoyo District. It specifically aimed at: examining
the extent to which households use their income in preventive measures and
practices; determining the extent to which malaria is an income problem. The study
used cross-sectional research design, and data were collected using structured
questionnaires and standardised interview guides as well as personal observation.
Data analysis employed SPSS for simple descriptive statistics; frequencies and
percentages. The study was undertaken in Bagamoyo District, the entire sample size
of the population was 120 respondents who were heads of households and were
randomly selected. The findings have shown that poor income status at the
household level leads to low interventions in malaria control measures and
practices. Major negative effects of malaria which were obtained from the study
included reduced households income, reduced households production, reduced farm
performance and poor school performance. It was clearly shown that malaria
affected more the low income generating households than high income generating
households. Not only that but also the level of education was seen to be too low in
low income generating households compared to high income generating
households. This brought a very big difference regarding the capability of fighting
the diseases. After all these assessments it was clearly found that high households’
income contributes very much in malaria control measures and practices. Raising
the households’ income status will contribute to the well being and development of
the households and communities at large in solving their problems.
