Factors Associated With Women’s Exposure to Mass Media for Health Care Information in Ethiopia. A Case-control Study

Introduction: Mass media are often essential to communicate health messages. Women’s exposure to mass media remained low in Ethiopia. Evidence was scarce on underlined factors for enhancing women’s exposure to mass media. Objective: This study aimed to assess factors associated with women’s exposure to mass media in Ethiopia. Methods: : The study was a secondary data analysis of the Ethiopian demographic and health survey 2016. A case-control study applied with frequency matching by place of residence and women’s educational levels using a 1:1 ratio. A total of 9885 participants (4824 cases and 5061 controls) were involved in the study. Cases were women who had exposure and controls were who did not have exposure to mass media. Women’s exposure to mass media is defined as the total number of women aged 15-49 who report exposure to either radio, television, newspapers, or magazines at least once a week. Logistic regressions analysis was conducted and the level of statistical significance was determined by a p-value of less than 0.05to identify factors associated with women’s exposure to mass media. Result: Being in Women’s age group 30-34 years (AOR=1.19,95% C.I:1.04-1.35), having own mobile phones (AOR=1.92,95% C.I:1.71-2.15), women ever used internet (AOR=1.56,95% C.I:1.13-2.13), Women in the female-headed household (AOR=0.76,95%C.I:0.68-0.86),Women in middle (AOR=1.48,95%C.I:1.25-1.76), richer (AOR=2.13,95%C.I:1.82-2.49) and richest (AOR=2.67,95% C.I:2.22-3.21) wealth index, and women visited by health care provider (AOR=1.41,95% C.I:1.17-1.71) were factors affecting women’s exposure to mass media. Conclusion: Women’s access to mobile phones, internet, and care provider counseling were facilitating factors for exposure to mass media. Younger age women, lower wealth quantile, and female headship in the household were risk factors for the non-exposure of women to mass media. Empowering household wealth and improving access to ICT could improve women’s exposure to mass media.