Factors affecting child mortality in Lesotho using 2009 and 2014 LDHS data.

Abstract

Child mortality rate is known to be the important indicator of social development, quality of life, welfare as well as the overall health of the society. In most countries, especially the developing countries; the death of a child is usually caused by transferable, preventable diseases and poor health. Progress in improving under-five mortality since 1990 has been made globally. There has been a decline globally in under-five mortality from 12.7 million in 1990 to approximately 6 million in 2015. All regions except the developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Southern Asia and Oceania had reduced the rate by 52% or more in 2013. Lesotho is a developing country with one of the highest rates of infant and child mortality. The study uncovers the factors influencing child mortality in Lesotho based on the Lesotho Demographic and Health Surveys for 2009 and 2014. The survey logistic regression, a model under the generalized linear model framework was used to find the factors related to under-five child mortality to account for the sampling designs complexity. The SLR model is not able to account for variability occurring from connection between subjects from the equal clusters and household. The generalized linear mixed model is then put into application. To ease the normality assumptions and the linearity assumption in the parametric models, the semi-parametric generalized additive model, was lastly used for the data. Finding the determining factors that result in child mortality will benefit the way intervention programs are planned and the formulation for policy makers to lead in the decreasing of child mortality; and accomplish MDGs. This study intends to improve the existing knowledge on child mortality in Lesotho by studying the determining factors in detail. Based on the previous studies this paper will recommend intervention designs and policy formulation. Overall, the findings of this research showed that birth order number, weight of child at birth, age of child, breastfeeding, wealth index, education attainment, mother’s age, type of place of residence, number of children living were the key determining factors of the under-five mortality in Lesotho. The study displays that policy makers should strengthen the interventions for child health in order to decrease child under-five mortality. The results achieved can help with the policy formulation to control and reduce child mortality. The government should continually assess current programs to review and develop programs that are more applicable.