Socio-economic and socio-cultural factors influencing infant mortality in rural Kenya

Abstract

The study attempted to assess some of the socio-economic and socio-cultural factors influencing infant mortality in rural Kenya. The study had three main objectives. First, to assess the effects of selected socio-economic factors on infant mortality in rural Kenya Second, to assess the effects of selected socio-cultural factors on infant mortality. Third, to establish some of the mechanisms through which socio-economic and socio-cultural factors influenced infant mortality in rural Kenya. This study was based on data from the 1998 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS). A sub-sample of 6268 births that occurred between 1989-1997 to women aged 15-49 years was used for analysis. Out of these births, 469 died in infancy. The analytical framework developed by Mosley and Chen (1984) for studying child survival in developing countries was adopted to guide the study. Cross-tabulation was used in order to assess the association between the dependent variable and the independent variables. Logistic regression was used to analyze the effects of the explanatory variables on infant mortality. The socio-economic variables selected for the study were maternal education, paternal education, province of residence and paternal occupation while the socio-cultural variables were ethnicity, type of marriage and religion. Presence of toilet/latrine facility, source of drinking water, main type of floor material, length of preceding birth interval, parity and maternal age at birth were the proximate variables in the study. The findings of the study showed that maternal education, paternal education, province of residence, ethnicity and type of marriage were the socio-economic and cultural factors that had significant gross effects on infant mortality in rural Kenya. However, only province of residence, type of marriage and ethnicity remained statistically significant when the other explanatory variables were taken into account. Socio-economic factors namely maternal education and paternal education were shown to influence infallibility through some mechanisms. Presence of a toilet/latrine facility,source of drinking water, parity, length of preceding birth interval and maternal age at birth were some of the mechanisms through which maternal and paternal education influenced infant mortality in rural Kenya. The mechanisms through which province of residence, ethnicity and type of marriage influenced infant mortality were not clear in the study. The study also established that the major determinants of infant mortality in rural Kenya were ethnicity, length of preceding birth interval, province of residence, parity and type of marriage, which had significant net effects on infant mortality Although education was found not to be a significant determinant of infant mortality, efforts should be made to expand access to education as education would be crucial in improving household economic status thus more access to better sanitary conditions such as piped water and toilet/latrine facilities, hence less infant deaths due to water borne diseases such as diarrhoea. The study also recommended more efforts towards improving infrastructure and providing social amenities in rural areas with low socio-economic development such as Nyanza, Coast and Western provinces. Further research should be carried out on the mechanisms through which province of residence, ethnicity and type of marriage influence infant mortality, as they were not clear in this study. In addition, more in-depth studies should be carried out to investigate the effect of cultural traditions, beliefs, customs and practices an infant mortality in rural Kenya. Future studies should incorporate the health factors when establishing the mechanisms that socio-economic and socio-cultural factors operate through to influence infant mortality.