Identifying potential catalysts to accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among adolescents living in Nigeria

Figures & data

Table 1. a. SDG-aligned outcomes, questions used and operationalised measures. b. SDG targets, questions used and operationalized measure.

SDG Target	Questions/variables used	Operationalised measure used in this study	Measure
3.4 End all forms of malnutrition	Anthropometry measurements: Height and Weight	BMI for Age Stunting	No undernourishment
3.5 Prevention of substance use	-During the last 30 days how many times days did you have at least one drink containing alcohol? -During the past 30 days, on how many days did you smoke cigarettes or any other form of tobacco, such as snuff?	No self-reported use of alcohol, or tobacco within the past 30days	No substance use
4.1 All girls and boys complete primary education	Age and class	Appropriate age for class based on the Nigerian Ministry of Education recommendations	Normal school progression
4.4 Increase relevant skills for employment	During the past 30 days, on how many days did you miss class or school without permission? Have you often had trouble concentrating or keeping your mind on what you are doing for more than a short time?	No self-reported school absenteeism within the past 30 days No self-reported history of not being able to concentrate (in the past 12 months)	Optimal school attendance Ability to concentrate in school
5.2 Universal access to sexual and reproductive health	i) Age at onset of sexual intercourse ii) The last time you had sexual intercourse did you or your partner use a condom?	No self-reported onset of sexual intercourse on or before the age of 14 and/or Use of condom during last sexual encounter	No risky sexual behaviours
16.1 Reduce all forms of violence and related deaths. 16.1a No violence perpetration 16.1b No community violence	i) Have you shoplifted, that is, stolen from a shop when you thought no one was looking? ii) Have you snatched someone else’s purse iii) Have you broken or spoilt some place on purpose? iv) Have you stolen from someone when they were not looking? v) Have you broken into a building, house or car? In the past 12 months how many times you were physically attacked?	No self-reported history of shoplifted or snatching someone’s purse or vandalizing or burglary (in the last 12 months) No self-reported history of being physically attacked in the past 12 months	No self-perpetration of violence No community violence
16.2 End violence against children	i) Has an adult ever forced you to have sexual intercourse with them? ii) Has an adult ever touched breast, private parts or made you touched parts of their private parts?	No self-reported history of rape and/or fondling with body parts	No sexual abuse

Table 2. Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents (N = 1800).

Characteristics	Categories	Number	Percentage (%)
Age   Total	10–14 15–19	749 1051 1800	41.6 58.4 100
Gender   Total	Male Female	925 875 1800	51.4 48.6 100
Residence   Total	Rural Urban	446 1354 1800	24.8 75.2 100
Socioeconomic status*   Total	Low High	1206 593 1799	67.0 33.0 100
Orphan status   Total	Yes No	173 1605 1778	9.7 90.3 100
Fathers highest level of education       Total	No formal/Quranic Education Primary Education Secondary/Tertiary Education Don’t know	96 255 1018 426 1795	5.3 14.2 56.7 23.7 100
Mothers highest level of education       Total	No formal/Quranic education Primary Education Secondary/Tertiary Education Don’t Know	179 315 952 334 1780	10.1 17.7 53.5 18.8 100

N< 1800 indicates missing value.

*Participants’ socioeconomic status (SES) was derived using a modified version of the Oyedeji socioeconomic classification (Oyedeji, 1985), in which the parents’ occupational status and educational status were graded on a scale of 1 to 4 (i.e. highly skilled and highly educated= 4; unemployed/don’t know and uneducated/don’t know= 1). The average of the sum of both parents’ score was obtained, and the mean score (2.97) was used as the cut-off. Participants who scored below the mean were categorised as having high SES and those who had the mean score and above were categorised as having low SES.

Table 3. Frequency distribution of SDG targets (N = 1800).

Variables	N(%)
SDG Targets
SDG 2.2 Adequate BMI for Age	1389 (79.4)
SDG 2.2 No Stunting	1438 (82.2)
SDG 3.5 No substance use	1428 (79.6)
SDG 4.1 Optimal school progression	927 (51.5)
SDG 4.4 Ability to concentrate in class	978 (55.2)
SDG 4.4 Optimal school attendance	1238 (69.8)
SGD 5.2 No risky sexual behaviours	1463 (83.1)
SDG 16.1a No self-perpetration of violence	1230 (71.4)
SDG 16.1b No community violence	1202 (32.0)
SDG16.2 No sexual abuse	1573 (89.6)
Accelerator Protective Factors
Food secure	1221 (68.4)
No mental health issues	890 (50.5)
Safe school	1163 (66.8)
Not doing survival work	1472 (81.8)
Regular Physical activity	703 (39.9)
Stable Childhood	1301 (73.3)

Table 4. Association between hypothesised accelerators and SDG targets related to the survive and thrive dimension of the Child Rights (N = 1800).

SDG Targets	Normal BMI for Age			No stunting			No substance use
Accelerators	n (%)	X^2	p-value	n (%)	X^2	p- value	n (%)	X^2	p- value
Food Security Yes No	939 (79.3) 437 (79.5)	0.01	0.944	958 (81.1) 468 (84.8)	3.46	0.063	998 (82.1) 419 (74.4)	13.89	<0.001
Optimal Mental Health Yes No	696 (80.0) 691 (78.8)	3.90	0.532	713 (82.0) 723 (82.6)	0.13	0.712	851 (83.4) 575 (25.3)	20.71	<0.001
No survival work Yes No	1151 (80.3) 239 (75.1)	4.35	0.037	1208 (84.4) 231 (73.1)	22.53	<0.001	1165 (79.5) 263 (80.4)	0.15	0.697
Safe schools Yes No	895 (79.1) 452 (80.6)	0.52	0.469	930 (81.9) 460 (83.0)	0.34	0.556	965 (83.1) 415 (72.3)	27.62	<0.001
Stability of childhood Yes No	1005 (79.6) 361 (78.0)	0.57	0.450	1053 (84.3) 365 (79.0)	4.55	0.033	1054 (81.3) 358 (75.8)	6.46	0.011
Regular physical Activity Yes No	557(79.3) 845 (79.9)	0.07	0.790	570(82.8) 833(81.3)	0.89	0.40	554 (81.4) 805(77.9)	2.93	0.08

Bolded values indicate significance at P < 0.005

Table 5. Association between hypothesised accelerators and SDG targets in the learning dimension of the Child Rights (N = 1800).

SDG Targets	School Progression			Able to Concentrate			Optimal School Attendance
Accelerators	n (%)	X^2	p-value	n (%)	X^2	p-value	n (%)	X^2	p-value
Food Security Yes No	651(53.3) 266 (47.2)	5.68	0.017*	717(59.5) 255(46.2)	26.92	<0.001	889 (73.6) 340 (61.6)	25.89	<0.001
Optimal Mental Health Yes No	550 (53.7) 374 (48.4)	4.79	0.029*	626(63.9) 318(43.3)	71.65	<0.001	732 (72.4) 503 (66.3)	7.73	0.005
No survival work Yes No	829 (56.3) 98 (43.7)	75.07	<0.001	778(55.7) 166(52.2)	1.30	0.253	1023 (70.3) 215 (67.8)	0.73	0.392
Safe schools Yes No	575 (49.4) 318 (55.1)	4.96	0.026	659(58.5) 256(47.9)	16.71	<0.001	839 (72.8) 357 (36.7)	16.06	<0.001
Stability of childhood Yes No	723 (55.6) 191 (40.3)	32.46	<0.001	720(56.0) 247(53.3)	0.96	0.327	915 (71.3) 309 (66.5)	3.76	0.052
Regular physical activity Yes No	375 (53.3) 531 (50.1)	1.78	0.181	372(53.6) 583(55.8)	0.84	0.358	482 (69.1) 736 (70.3)	0.31	0.580

Bolded values indicate significance at p < 0.005

Table 6. Association between accelerators and SDG targets in the protection dimension of the Child Rights.

SDG Targets	No risky sexual behaviour			No self-perpetration of violence			No community violence			No sexual abuse
Accelerators	n (%)	X^2	P-value	n (%)	X^2	P-value	n (%)	X^2	P-value	n (%)	X^2	P-value
Food Security Yes No	1021(85.5) 430 (77.8)	16.14	<0.001	874 (74.4) 349 (65.1)	15.74	<0.001	874 (72.7) 317 (57.6)	39.06	<0.001	1083(90.9) 477 (85.5)	7.66	0.006
Optimal Mental Health Yes No	850 (85.2) 610 (80.3)	7.38	0.007	892 (90.7) 614 (84.6)	15.18	<0.001	998 (69.3) 204 (62.6)	5.45	0.020	805 (92.7) 765 (86.4)	18.61	<0.001
No survival work Yes No	1217 (84.7) 246 (75.9)	14.44	<0.001	1013 (72.2) 217 (68.0)	2.16	0.141	1023(70.3) 215 (67.8)	0.73	0.392	1290 (89.7) 283 (89.0)	0.14	0.71
Safe schools Yes No	968 (84.5) 446 (79.1)	7.89	0.005	856 (75.8) 333 (61.9)	34.53	<0.001	856 (74.4) 311 (54.9)	65.74	<0.001	1035 (90.9) 492 (87.1)	5.83	0.016
Stability of childhood Yes No	1089 (85.5) 357 (77.7)	17.07	<0.001	901 (71.9) 317 (70.8)	0.19	0.669	870 (68.2) 313 (67.2)	0.16	0.688	1148 (90.5) 409 (88.1)	2.00	0.157
Regular physical activity Yes No	562(81.8) 874(83.8)	1.16	0.280	485(71.5) 721(71.2)	0.03	0.873	455(65.7) 727(69.7)	3.13	0.07	595 (87.2) 949 (91.0)	6.15	0.013

Bolded values indicate significance at P<0.005.

Table 7. Association between parental support and SDG targets.

Accelerator	Parental Support
SDG Targets	Mean (SD)	t	df	p-value
No stunting No Yes	10.26 (3.46) 10.33 (3.27)	3.15	1750	0.753
Not underweight No Yes	10.34 (3.35) 10.30 (3.30)	0.20	1750	0.835
No substance use No Yes	9.95 (3.16) 10.40(3.33)	2.32	1782	0.020
School progression No Yes	10.15 (10.15) 10.46 (10.46)	1.98	1786	0.047
Able to concentrate No Yes	10.09 (3.21) 10.46 (3.38)	2.33	1761	0.019
Optimal school attendance No Yes	9.79 (3.14) 10.56 (3.33)	4.49	1767	<0.001
No risky sexual behaviour No Yes	10.11 (3.14) 10.34 (3.33)	1.12	1753	0.001
No self-perpetration of violence No Yes	9.71(3.29) 10.55(3.28)	4.80	1743	<0.001
No community violence No Yes	9.91 (3.15) 10.47 (3.36)	3.28	1751	0.001
No sexual abuse No Yes	9.91(3.11) 10.36(3.32)	1.73	1748	0.081

Indicate significance at P<0.005.

Instruments used during data collection

Instrument/questionnaire	Authors	Description
Socio-demographic Questionnaire	Olayinka Omigbodun	Collects information on sex, age, family structure and school related issues.
Global School Health Questionnaire (GHSQ)	World Health Organization in collaboration with Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (WHO & CDC, 2003)	Measures behavioural risk and protective factors across 10 key areas: Alcohol use Dietary behaviour Drug use Hygiene and sanitation Physical activity Sexual behaviour Dietary behaviour Parenting support and supervision Violence and unintentional injury
Culture-free Self-esteem Inventory	Battle James (Battle, 1992)	30-item questionnaire used to identify problems with self-esteem in adolescence. 10 items were selected for use during the data collection
Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC) Predictive scales	National institute for mental health in the United States of America (Shaffer et al., 2000	Structured diagnostic interview which assesses common mental health disorders in children and adolescents such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, suicidal behaviours and conduct disorders

Factor analysis of parental support

Questions	Factor loadings
Parent/s know what you are doing with free time	0.783
Parent/s understand worries and problems	0.780
Parent/s check to see if homework is done	0.688

Oyedeji, G. (1985). Socioeconomic and cultural background of hospitalized children in Ilesa. Niger J Peadiatr, 12, 111–11.

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