SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF INFANT AND CHILD MORTALITY

Abstract

Infant and child mortality rate are significant phenomenon closely related to the healthy status of a society. They are major indicators of development. The secondary analysis methodology was adopted in this study while the major source of data was NDHS 2013 report. The ex post-facto research design was used in describing the NDHS 2013 qualitative data. The collected data is centered on Nigeria while empirical studies are not limited to Nigeria.to classify various social determinants of infant and child mortality either as individual and community factors or endogenous and exogenous factors. These social determinants were ex-rayed in relationship to their socio-economic implication. At the macro level, high rate of infant and child mortality are clear indices of poor health care facility and system, unhygienic environment, chronic poverty, enduring illiteracy and intense insecurity. At the micro level, it shows skewed income distribution, ignorance, poor exposure and food insufficiency. The study shows that social exclusion of mothers from decision making, inadequate knowledge about care for pregnancies, attitude toward accessibility of quality and affordable health care and insecurity have influence on morality growth. While there was an inverse relationship between income, residence, education, occupation, age of mothers, mother’s experience and infant and child mortality, there was a positive relationship between choice of contraceptives, male preference, mother’s non-freedom of choice, attitude toward place of delivery, inaccessibility of antenatal and post-natal care, perception toward acceptance of anti-tetanus treatment during pregnancies, incompetency of health workers and infant and child mortality. The study also shows that increase in per capital GDP is associated with decrease in infant and child mortality.