Environmental Risk Factors of Childhood Mortality in Kenya: Evidence and Policy Implications

Abstract

What is the impact of environmental factors on child death? How do these intervening variables operate to bring about exposure and susceptibility to infections and or malnutrition and finally child death? The broad objective of this study is to identify and analyze the environmental risks of early death and to examine in some detail observed social factors which may influence these effects. The KDHS, 1989 data was used in this analysis so as to assess its usefulness in undertaking such a study. After perusing through the literature revfew, it was evident that all the environmental factors studied have been found to have a strong relationship with childhood mortality. It is on this basis that the environmental risk factors used in this study have been selected namely; household size (as a measure for overcrowding), source of water supply, type of housing and type of toilet facility. These risk factors are quantified so as to determine their strength in predicting child death. In order to understand the role of these factors on mortality, two techniques are used in the study: Trussell's technique for the estimation of childhood mortality using defective data and Logistic Regression model using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for analysis.