Geographical Variations in Infant and Child Mortality in West Africa: A Geo-Additive Discrete-Time Survival Modelling
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Date
2016
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Publisher
Springer Open
Abstract
This study examines the residual geographical variations in infant and child mortality
and how the different categories of the risk factors account for the spatial inequality
in West African countries. To this end, we pooled data for 10 of the countries
extracted from Demographic and Health Surveys and used the spatial extension
of discrete-time survival model to examine how the variables exert influence on
infant and child mortality across space. Inference was Bayesian based on the
computational efficient MCMC technique. We found different geographical patterns for
infant and child mortality. In the case of children under five, demographic factors
inherent to the mother and child as well as maternal status variables when accounted
for explain away a good part of the huge variations observed in the crude rates. There
are no evidence of significant variations, however, in infant mortality except for three
neighbouring regions of Liberia and Sierra Leone. The findings can guide in
evidence-based allocation of scarce resources in West Africa with the aim of
improving the survival chance of young children.
Description
Keywords
Child mortality, Spatial analysis, West Africa, Environmental factors, Mother’s status, MCMC