Determinants of infant mortality rate in Uganda: analysis of UDHS data 2016

Abstract

The study sought to explore the determinants of infant mortality in Uganda, specifically determining the relationship between infant mortality and different aspects about children (sex and birth order), the mother (education level and age) and household factors (wealth index). The study used the UDHS 2016 data considering that related to children under five in order to achieve the study objectives. The researcher used SPSS for analysis, and results showed that approximately male children constituted the same percentage as females’ i.e. 49.8% for males and 50.2% for females and majority (64.0%) of the children were of 1st to 4th birth order followed by 29.5% for 5th to 8th birth order and the rest for 9th birth order and above. As regards to maternal factors, majority (57.7%) of the mothers had attained primary education followed by 23.2% that had not attained any form of education, 15.7% had finished secondary and only 3.4% finished tertiary education. Majority of the mothers were aged 20 to 39 years, 8.1% were aged 40 to 49 years and 5.9% were aged 15 to 19 years. Considering the household factors, majority (53.4%) of the households were poor, then 29.9% were rich and 16.8% households were in middle income. Testing for the relationships, infant mortality was significantly related with sex of the children, birth order, education level and wealth index of the households. In that a high percentage of male children were dying as compared to female ones, a high number of the early born children (4th order and below) had died as compared to the later (9th order and above), most mothers that had stopped in only primary level and also mothers that could not read at all had lost a high number of children as compared to those that had attained tertiary education and a high number of children from poor families had died as compared to those from rich families. The study therefore recommended that there should be improvement in livelihood programmes necessary for improving the wealth of household in order to reduce infant mortality as it was found out that wealth index of a household is significantly related to infant mortality, Mothers illiteracy should be eradicate by Adult education programs and differential care should be given to different child sexes at birth as it was found out that the death rate of boys is higher than that of girls