Fig 1.
Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) illustrates how rabies vaccination status is hypothesised to vary with an observed confounder education, primary use of the dog, number of dogs in the house, dog’s confinement status, feeding and caring methods (care), occupation of the dog owner and treatment option following a dog bite, rural or urban residence, and a latent understanding(understanding)—representing the respondents’ general comprehension of rabies.
The blue circles represent outcome variables, the green circles represent exposures (i.e., predictor variables), and the grey circles represent unobserved variables. Generally, green lines represent the front door path or the causal effect of interest.
Table 1.
Demographic characteristics and dog ownership practices, including gender of dog owner, age, occupation education levels, number of dogs in each household(1 or >1), confinement status, use of dogs, and knowledge about rabies and veterinary care.
Fig 2.
The posterior distribution of the effect of education on latent understanding of rabies demonstrated a positive association between latent understanding and tertiary education.
No education was negatively associated with latent understanding.
Table 2.
Posterior distribution of estimated effects on the logit (probability of vaccination) among dog owners in Sierra Leone in 2023.
Fig 3.
Spatial clusters of non-vaccination among dogs against rabies in Sierra Leone during 2023 revealed more likely clusters (depicted in red) in Moyamba with a radius of 40 km.
Included are 626 dogs with a relative risk (RR) of 1.10. Bo (Southern Province) had a radius of 19.9 km and 206 dogs with an RR of 1.11. Areas such as the Kono District (Eastern Province), included 68 dogs, with RR of 0.68 and Freetown (Western Area), radius 20 km, with 68 dogs, with RR of 0.68 lower risk of non-vaccination. Map of Sierra Leone. The map was created using QGIS (the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). The shapefile was retrieved from DIVA-GIS (https://www.diva-gis.org/).