Determinants of child mortality in Kenya: regional variations

Abstract

This project highlights the determinants of child mortality in Kenya on the national and regional levels, using the 1998 KDHS data The national council for population and Development in collaboration with the Central Bureau of statistics (CBS) and the Institute of Research Development (IRD) conducted the survey. The main objective of the study was to explore the determinants of child mortality in Kenya and more specifically at the regional level. The variables used for analysis in this study included; maternal education, paternal education, maternal occupation, maternal age, birth order, succeeding birth interval, type of marriage and reugion. Cross \abu\a\ion and iogisuc regression were used as the main statistical tools for analysis. The major findings of this study were that the major factors influencing child mortality nationally were maternal education, paternal education,maternal occupation, the succeeding birth interval and the presence of a toilet facility. At the regional level, factors found to have a significant influence on child mortality at both the bi-variate and multivariate levels were, succeeding birth interval in Nairobi, the presence of a toilet facility in Central, Coast, Eastern and Rift Valley, paternal education, succeeding birth interval and maternal occupation in Nyanza while maternal education was significantly associated with child mortality in Western. Variables found to have no significant association in any of the regions of Kenya in this study at both the bi-variate and multi variate levels were the socio-cultural factors, which are the type of marriage and religion. This study recommend further investigation of the determinants of child mortality incorporating other determinants especially HIV /AIDS. HIV /AIDS is known to be associated with child mortality due to vertical viral transmission from the mother to the child. The possible factors were left out due to limitation of the data.