BMC Public Health 2009, 9:465 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/465 Table 2: Change over time in the prevalence1 of overweight and obesity in urban areas of the selected countries Survey 1 Survey 2 Var (%)2 Not overweight/obese Overweight/obese Overweight Obese Statistical significance N 76.8 23.2 5.3 17.9 5,887 p = 0.000 68.6 31.4 6.0 25.4 14,105 1Based on weighted percentage 2Percentage of variation between survey 1 and survey 2 -10.7 35.5 14.5 41.7 Multivariate model Table 3 shows the results of the multivariate analysis. Overall (pooled sample), the likelihood of overweight and obesity increased over time in urban areas. The odds ratio of the variable time lapse was 1.05 (p < 0.01), indicat- ing that the prevalence of overweight/obesity increased by about 5% per year on average in the countries in the study. All three socioeconomic variables included in the analysis were strongly associated with overweight/obesity. Women from the richest households were more than three times as likely as their counterparts from the poorest house- holds to be overweight or obese (p < 0.01); women with secondary or higher education were about 60% more likely to be overweight or obese compared to their coun- terparts with no education (p < 0.01); and working women were more than 13% more likely to be overweight or obesity as compared to their counterparts who were not working (p < 0.01). With regard to demographic covari- Table 3: Odds ratios of ordered logistic regression on overweight and obesity in selected African countries (Overweight or obese) vs Not overweight/ obese Obese vs (overweight or not overweight/obese) Odds Ratio 95% Confidence Interval Odds Ratio 95% Confidence Interval [0.43; 0.59 ] Same Same [3.12; 4.08 ] aSame Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Page 5 of 9 (page number not for citation purposes) Time lap (Continuous) Household wealth (Ref: Poorest) Middle Richest Education (Ref: None) Primary Secondary+ Working status (Ref: Not working) Working Age (Ref: 20-24) 15-19 25-29 30-34 35+ Marital status (Ref: Current married) Never married Other Parity (Ref: <2) 2-3 4-5 6+ Country (Ref: Burkina) Ghana Kenya Malawi Niger Senegal Tanzania 1.05** 1.97 ** 3.20 ** 1.40 ** 1.59 ** 1.13 ** 0.61 ** 1.52 ** 2.49 ** 3.28 ** 0.62 ** 0.91 † 1.22 ** 1.26 ** 1.22 ** 1.40 ** 1.54 ** 0.79 ** 1.49 ** 1.21 ** 1.19 ** [1.04; 1.06] [1.80; 2.16 ] [2.92; 3.51 ] [1.27; 1.53 ] [1.44; 1.76 ] [1.05; 1.22 ] [0.53; 0.70 ] [1.36; 1.69 ] [2.19; 2.82 ] [2.87; 3.74 ] [0.55; 0.70 ] [0.82; 1.02 ] [1.10; 1.36 ] [1.10; 1.43 ] [1.05; 1.41 ] [1.24; 1.58 ] [1.37; 1.74 ] [0.69; 0.91 ] [1.32; 1.67 ] [1.07; 1.36 ] [1.05; 1.34 ] 0.50 ** 3.57 ** †p < .10;*p < .05; **p < .01 aEstimates for (Overweight or obese) vs Not overweight/obese are the same as for Obese vs (overweight or not overweight/obese).