Table 1. Operational definitions of co-variates used in the current analysis.

Variables	Operationalized descriptions
Age at interview	A continuous variable representing women’s age at the time of interview.
Age at marriage	This continuous variable representing women’s age at first marriage was dummy coded. If women were married at or after age 20 which is the legal age for marriage in Nepal, they were coded as 1; whereas if they were married before age 20, they were coded as 0.
Number of children	Number of children women had given birth were coded into three dummy variables: Women with one child, women with two children, and those with more than 2 children.
Education: Women and Husband’s	Women’s (and their husband’s) education included three dummy variables: no education, primary education (that included pre-primary to the completion of 5th grade), secondary and beyond education (6th grade and above).
Wealth index	Using a long list of variables that assessed household's ownership of assets (such as radio, televisions, bicycles, mobile phone, refrigerator, table, chair, bed, sofa, and so on), the DHS data classified households into 5 wealth indices: poorest, poorer, middle, richer and richest. This variable was recoded into three dummy variables—poor, middle and rich class. Poor class included poorest and poorer, middle class remained unchanged, and rich included richer and the richest.
Religion	Hindu women were coded as 1; else they were coded as 0.
Rural/Urban	Urban residence = 1; rural residence = 0
Ecological region of their residence	Three geographic regions of Nepal, the northern Mountain region, middle hills, and southern Terai. These three variables were dummy variables as Mountain, Hill and Terai.
Barriers use health services: Problem w/Money Problem w/Distance	Respondents were asked: Many different factors can prevent women from getting medical advice or treatment for themselves. When you are sick and want to get medical advice or treatment, is each of the following a big problem or not? The sub-questions included: Getting money needed for advice or treatment? The distance to the health facility? Answer categories for each question included: big problem (1) and not a big problem (2). For each response if the answer was a big problem it was coded as 1; else = 0.
Total # of antenatal care visits for the most recent live birth	Women’s response to total the number of antenatal care visits used for their most recent live birth was dummy coded into three variables: no visit, 1 to 3 visits, and 4 or more visits.
Women’s exposure to news media index	Three items were used: (a) Do you read a newspaper or magazine, at least once a week, less than once a week or not at all? (b) Do you listen to the radio, at least once a week, less than once a week or not at all? (c) Do you watch television, at least once a week, less than once a week or not at all? Response included: at least once a week (= 2); less than once a Week (= 1); and not at all (= 0). An index was created whose values ranged from 0 to 6 where 0 means no media exposure and 6 means weekly exposure to all 3—newspaper, radio and tv.
Women’s exposure to health education programs	The survey asked: In the last few months have you heard or seen the following programs on the radio and/or television: (a) Jana Swastha Radio Karyakram? (b) Janasankhya Chetana ka Sworeharu Radio Karyakram? (c) Hamro Swastha Radio Karyakram? (d) Ama radio Karyakram? (e) Hamro Swastha TV Karyakram? (f) Jeevan Chakra TV Karyakram? (g) Thorai bhaye pugi sari TV Karyakram? (h) Ama TV Karyakram? (i) Sathi Sanga Manka Kura Radio Karyakram? (j) Jeevan Jyoti Radio Karyakram? The response categories for each question included yes = 1 and no = 0. Those who had heard/seen any one of these programs were coded 1; else = 0.