Factors associated with under-five mortality in Mbarara district

Abstract

This is a key global indicator of child health, and one of the most important measures of global health. It reflects the socioeconomic, health, and environmental conditions in which a child lives and develops. Under-five Mortality rate (UFMR) is defined as the probability of a child dying before attaining the exact age of 5 years, calculated per 1000 live births (UNICEF, 2016). High under-5 Mortality is as a result of a combination of failures including poor nutrition, low immunization rates, poor maternal health and education, etc. For this reason, it is a powerful indicator of inequity and systemic health challenges. The determinants of child and under-5 mortalities are highly correlated with socioeconomic, demographic, and behavioral factors of households, health seeking behavior of mothers, and environmental factors. Several studies have investigated that maternal age and education be found to be strongly correlated with child Mortality (Ayele, Zewotir & Mwambi, 2016).This paper seeks to establish the relative contribution of demographic and socio-economic factors like place of residence, household wealth and access to healthcare as well as health factors including birth and development complications, vaccination status, antenatal attendance, and disease to under-5 Mortality in Mbarara District, in order to provide insight on the topic and thus provide possible solutions to the high rate of under-5 Mortality in the district and the country at large.A sample of 150 mothers was selected randomly from the hospital records of mothers who had delivered babies in Mwizi Health 4 in Mbarara district in the last five years to take part in the survey. Data analysis consisted of quantitative analysis with STATA software version 15. This included establishment of associations using chi-square test to establish relative association of the factors to under-5 Mortality.The study findings revealed that Place of residence, Level of education, Vaccination Status, Wealth index, Distance to Health Centre had high contribution to under-5 Mortality, with type of place of residence and level of education having the least effect and Vaccination Status, number of antenatal visits, distance to health centre and wealth index having the most significant effect on under-5 Mortality