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Article History

Received: 27 May 2024

Accepted: 30 September 2025

First Online: 21 November 2025

Declarations

:

: The authors obtained permission to access the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) datasets through the DHS Program’s official website (https://www.dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm). All data provided by the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program are anonymized before being released for public use. The 2016 UDHS received ethical clearance from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of ICF, which, along with ORC Macro and ICF Macro IRBs, adhered to the ethical guidelines set forth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (45 CFR 46) for the protection of human research subjects. Informed verbal consent was obtained from all study participants, with consent from parents or legal guardians for those under 18 years of age. Additionally, geographic data collected by DHS is intentionally imprecise to protect respondent confidentiality. Locations are randomly displaced within defined limits: urban clusters are shifted up to 2 km, rural clusters up to 5 km, and 1% of the data points are displaced up to 10 km. Full details regarding the methodology and ethical considerations of the survey are available in the 2016 UDHS report [18] and at http://goo.gl/ny8T6X. The authors affirm that all procedures followed the ethical principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki and complied with relevant regulatory standards.

: Not required.

: The authors declare no competing interests.