Factors Associated With Urban and Rural Under Five Mortality Differentials in Kenya

Abstract

Under five mortality rate (U5MR) remains one of the key measures of wellbeing of a community, socioeconomic development as well as the quality of life. This study aimed at establishing whether the shift in under-five mortality rate by place of residence was due to statistical artifact or it was real. The retrospective nature of Demographic and Health Surveys and partial operationalization of Mosley and Chen Framework for child survival were the study challenges. Descriptive statistics and parametric survival analyses were undertaken on 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey child dataset for purposes of filling the gap on factors associated with urban and rural under five mortality differentials. Descriptive statistics shows that 296 and 575 under five deaths occurred in urban and rural areas respectively. The Weibull with gamma frailty for pooled urban and rural areas dataset established that there was no statistical difference in under five mortality by place of residence. The factors associated with under five mortality for pooled dataset were religion ,interaction variable BORD and PBI as well as source of drinking water .Factors associated with urban under five mortality were maternal education, region of residence, household wealth quintiles , maternal age and the source of drinking water while in the rural areas region of residence and maternal age were associated with under five mortality. According to results it was concluded that Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2014 dataset was inappropriate for establishing whether under five morality differentials was an attribution of data artifacts or it was real. Additionally, under-five mortality rate could be converging and the difference between groups may have narrowed. Future studies should focus on whether U5M differentials in Kenya are as a result of time dependence of the occurrence