SOCIO-ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES IN ADULT MORTALITY AMONG THE GEOPOLITICAL ZONES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Increased longevity is the desire of every individual and no one will rationally ignore minimising the risk of untimely death in spite of numerous challenges in daily life. Mortality numbers are interesting source of information on the national health because they are objective figures that can provide a broad image of the health situation of groups of interest. Hence, this paper examines the pattern of socio-economic inequalities in adult mortality across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria using (2008 NDHS datasets). Mortality was calculated based on the sibling mortality reports of the respondents. In total, the estimates are based on mortality histories of 48,871 individuals covered in the NDHS. Mortality levels are measured along with household’s socio-economic status in each zone, that is, the degree to which adult mortality is more unequally distributed among different wealth quintiles in the six geopolitical zones in the country. The adopted quintiles include the poorest, poorer, middle, richer and richest. It is revealed that in all the geopolitical zones, relative inequalities became larger, implying that the existing burden of mortality became more unequally distributed across socioeconomic groups. Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality size were relatively large among the northern zones compared to their southern counterparts. The middle class recorded highest mortality in North Central, poorest in North East, poorer in North West, Richer in both South East and South South and the richest in South West. There is the need to reduce the socioeconomic inequality so as to increase adult healthy years of life in Nigeria. One way will be to replicate the relative success story of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) among the public servant of the federal government in the states as well as the highly populated informal sector.