Jornal de Biometria e Bioestatística

Risk Factors of Under-Five Mortality in Ethiopia: Application of Count Regression Model

Abstract

Setegn Muche Fenta, Haile Mekonnen Fenta

Background: Under-five mortality rate is considered as one of the most revealing measures of how well a society is meeting the wanted of its people. This study aim to identify factors that affect under-five mortality in Ethiopia.

Methods: The national level cross-sectional EDHS 2016 survey data were accessed and used for the analysis. A total of 14,370 women were included. Several count models such as Poisson, NB, ZIP, ZINB, HP and HNB models were fitted. Each of these models was compared by using LRT, Voung test and the information criteria’s.

Results: The data were found to have excess zeros (53.7%) and the variance (1.697) higher than its mean (0.90). HNB model was found to be a better fit to the dataset than the others count model. HNB model showed that fathers who have secondary and above education are about 32% less likely to die children compared with no formal education. Similarly, the risk of under-five death is 24% lower among the mothers having primary than those with no formal education. Babies delivered at private sector are 0.65 lower risk of under-five mortality compared to the babies delivered at home.

Conclusion: The findings suggested that vaccination of child, family size, antenatal visit, birth interval, contraceptive used, father education level, mother education level, place of delivery and age first birth were key determinants factor of under-five mortality. The ministry of health should work properly to raise the awareness of parents for vaccination, family planning services and efforts should be made to improve parental educational.