Socio-economic determinants of neonatal, post neonatal, infant and child mortality

Quamrul Hasan Chowdhury, Rafiqul Islam* and Kamal Hossain

Department of Population Science and Human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: rafique_pops@yahoo.com.

Accepted 4 March, 2010

Abstract

The infant and child mortality is an excellent summary index of the level of living and socio-economic development for any country. The aim is to determine socio-economic factors that affect infancy and childhood mortality. The result shows that neonatal mortality rates (NNMR), post-neonatal mortality rates (PNNMR) and infant mortality rates (IMR) are higher among illiterate reproductive mothers and of whom houses have unhygienic latrine. The Chi-square () test result implies that mother’s education, types of latrine and electricity have significant association with neonatal, post neonatal, infant and child mortality. Multivariate analysis results indicate that mother’s education and occupation have momentous influence on mortality of post-neonatal period but in infant and child period, parents’ education and occupation, types of latrine and electricity have significant effects on mortality. Therefore, education, sanitation facility as well as electrification of households need to be set absolute priority to reduce infant and child mortality in Bangladesh.

Key words: Neonatal mortality rate (NNMR), post-neonatal mortality rate (PNNMR), infant mortality rate (IMR), child mortality rate (CMR), Chi-square () test, logistic regression analysis, odds ratio.