Psychosocial Factors Influencing Drug Abuse Among Youths in Informal Settlements: A Case Study of Mathare Slums, Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Large population of youths in informal settlement in Kenya are involved in a number of social vices. These vices may include but not limited to robbery with violence, early marriages, dropping out of school and joining outlawed gangs. Youth involvement in social vices presents great concern to parents, government and non-governmental organizations. With increased prevalence of social vices in informal settlements in Kenya, this study was motivated to investigate the influence of psychosocial factors on drug abuse among the youths in Mathare informal settlements of Nairobi County, Kenya. This study sought to determine the effect of stress level as a psychosocial factor on drug abuse among the youths in Mathare informal settlement. The unit of analysis were persons of both genders falling between 18 years and 35 years of age. The target population was 17,894 youths of which a sample of 391 respondents was selected using proportionate stratified random sampling method. Data was collected using structured questionnaires and analysed using the linear regression analysis where hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance. The Content Validity Index (CVI) was utilized for the purposes of validity. The validity of the instruments was checked by the researcher who also sought the opinion of experts from the School of Education in Laikipia University. The reliability coefficients for questionnaire were estimated through Cronbach’s alpha. The resultant alpha for youth questionnaire was r= .827. The questionnaires were considered reliable after yielding a reliability coefficient alpha of at least 0.70. Both the descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was used by the study. The descriptive statistics that were used included the mean, standard deviations and frequency distributions. From the data analysis it was evident that stress level contributes to 2.8% of drug abuse cases among youth in Mathare informal settlements. The study recommends that county Government of Nairobi to economically empower the community of people with emphasis on the youths. This will help them think beyond immediate daily survival and assert greater control over their resources and life choices, especially decisions in investment in health, housing and education.
 
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Determinant factors for the expansion of informal settlement in Gondar city, Northwest Ethiopia

“…Anulo (2017); Friesen et al (2018); Ochocho et al (2018);and Zweig (2016) in their studies, argued that demographic indicators, such as age and marital status have contributed for the expansion of informal settlements. Also Heshmati and Zarabadi (2016); Meshkini et al (2015); and Mwacharo (2012) demonstrated that family size has a significant effect on the expansion of informal settlements. Large family size has its own contributions for the people who choose to live in informal settlements.…”

“…Accordingly, through exploring previous empirical studies, seventeen variables from demographic, socio-economic, administrative, and political and legislative dimensions, such as age, marital status, family size, educational level, inconsistency of plan and land legislations, corruption, rigid building regulation of legal houses, procedural problems of legal land provision, inefficient public administration, inadequate housing policy, high land price in the formal land market, land speculation, high housing rent, income disparity, population growth, land substitution modality, and political situation have considered and contextualized in this study (see Table 1). In the previous studies, these factors have been identified and justified using descriptive statistics (Akirso, 2021;Ali & Sulaiman, 2006;Anulo, 2017;Asefa, 2020;Baye, Wegayehu, & Mulugeta, 2020;Dadi, 2018;G/Silassie, 2019;Hadush, 2019;Matamanda, 2019;Mensah et al, 2013;Msuya et al, 2017;Mwacharo, 2012;Sakala, 2016;Wondimu, 2021), binary logistic regression model (Ochocho et al, 2018;Minetos & Polyzos, 2013), and factors analysis or principal component analysis methods (Heshmati & Zarabadi, 2016;Meshkini et al, 2015).…”

“…This in turn result in the expansion of informal settlements. Additionally, marriage (Anulo, 2017;Baye et al, 2020), age (Baye et al, 2020;Ochocho et al, 2018), and family size (Heshmati & Zarabadi, 2016;Meshkini et al, 2015;Mwacharo, 2012) have significant effect on the expansion of informal settlements.…”