Malaria Prevalence, Indoor Residual Spraying, and Insecticide-Treated Net Usage in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which bed net usage is responsive to changes in malaria prevalence and whether indoor residual spraying crowds out bed net usage. We show that malaria prevalence increases the probability of sleeping under an insecticide treated net but the implied elasticities are below one. For children under five, a one percentage point increase in malaria prevalence increases the probability of sleeping under a bed net by 0.41 percentage point. We find that indoor residual spraying does not crowd out bed net usage. Instead, children under five who live in houses that were recently sprayed are 3.1 percentage points more likely to sleep under a bed net.

Keywords: Malaria prevalence elasticity, Indoor residual spraying, Insecticide-treated nets

JEL Classification: I12, I15, I18, H4