Table 1.

Potential risk or protective covariates collected from surveys

Variable	Details
Demographic and socio-economic
Age	From 6 to 59 months old
Caretaker’s education	Binary variable; either (1) for high school education and above or (0) otherwise
Caretaker’s age	In years
Ethnicity	Four groups; (1) Bimoba, (2) Konkomba, (3) Mamprusi, and (4) Other, based on language of caretaker
Farming caretakera	Binary variable; either caretaker occupation being farming (1) or otherwise (0)
Gender	Binary variable; either male (1) or female (0)
Surface water source	Binary variable; either (1) source of drinking water from exposed surface water or (0) otherwise
Thatch roofing	Binary variable; either housing structure had a thatched roof (1) or otherwise (0)
Wealth quintile	Constructed from multiple variables, using the methodology of the Ghana Demographic Health Survey (2008) [80]
Malaria intervention
Health insurance—personal	Binary variable; either personal access to health insurance (1) or not (0)
Health insurance—community	Binary variable; either (1) for ≥ 80%b community coverage of sampled population or (0) otherwise
IRS in past 7 monthsa	Binary variable; either individual household having been treated with IRS in past 7 months (1) or not (0)
IRS in past year	Binary variable; either individual household having been treated with IRS in past year (1) or not (0)
Indoor residual spraying (IRS)—community coverage	Binary variable; either (1) for ≥ 80%b community coverage or (0) otherwise
Insecticide treated nets (ITN)—personal	Binary variable; either (1) if net was used in previous night or (0) otherwise
ITN—community coverage	Binary variable; either (1) for ≥ 80b % community coverage or (0) otherwise
Personal medication use	Binary variable; either (1) used in the past 2 weeks or (0) otherwise

^aRemoved from models due to high correlations (R² ≥ 0.49) with one or more other variables

^bBased on targets from Roll Back Malaria