Abstract
Globally, childhood mortality rates have decline over the years due majorly to various action plans and interventions targeted at various communicable diseases and other immunizable childhood infections which have been major causes of child mortality, but the situation seems to remain unchanged in sub-Saharan African countries, as approximately half of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa despite the region having only one fifth of the world’s children population. Many covariates associated with variations in infant and child mortality are interrelated, and it is important to attempt to isolate the effects of individual variables for proper and effective interventions. This study examined the environmental determinants of child mortality using principal component analysis as a data reduction technique with varimax rotation to assess the underlying structure for sixty-five measured variables, explaining the covariance relationships amongst the large correlated variables in a more parsimonious way and simultaneous multiple regression for child mortality modelling in Nigeria. For purpose of robustness, a model selection technique procedure was implemented. Estimation from the stepwise regression model shows that household environmental characteristics do have significant impact on mortality.
Highlights
Health and life actuaries have always had an especial interest in the development and construction of mortality rates as actuarial mortality reflect a country’s socio-economic level of development and quality of life and are used for monitoring and evaluating population and healthcare intervention programs and policies
The aim of this study is to explore the household’s environmental and socio-economic characteristics and their effect on child mortality, to assess the relationship between the environment and childhood mortality in Nigeria and identify the environmental determinants of child mortality, controlling for other covariates
The 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) is the fourth comprehensive survey conducted in Nigeria as part of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) programme
Summary
Health and life actuaries have always had an especial interest in the development and construction of mortality rates as actuarial mortality reflect a country’s socio-economic level of development and quality of life and are used for monitoring and evaluating population and healthcare intervention programs and policies. The number of deaths among children under age five has reduced from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009 (UNICEF, 2010) majorly due to interventions targeted at communicable diseases such as malaria, measles, diarrhoea, respiratory infections and other immunizable childhood infections which have been major causes of child mortality. These health gains were short lived especially in Africa because disease oriented vertical program alone were not effective (Mutunga, 2007). Environmental, maternal and socio-economic factors were acknowledged as additional important determinants of child survival (Espo, 2002)
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