Factors associated with infant mortality in Central Uganda

Abstract

Introduction Infant mortality has been at the hub of health discourse since time immemorial. One of the demographic variables that affect population trends is mortality. The mortality of the children is of interest to demographers, policy makers and researchers because it is one of the indicators of socio-economic development. In spite of improvements in the health and well-being of populations globally over the last few decades, factors such as infectious and parasitic diseases and malnutrition persist as the major obstacles to the improvements in infant mortality in many developing countries Methods The study used secondary data from the 2016 UDHS. . For this study, the children record (UGKR) was considered during the analysis. This dataset has a sample of 3206 (unweighted) and 4106 (weighted) children under five years of age in central Uganda. The data was analyzed in three forms; Univariate, Bivariate and Multivariate. STATA 16 was the statistical software that was used. The data for the mother of each of these children is also included. The unit of analysis (case) in this file is the children of women born in the last 5 years (0-59 months). Results The study found out that age (OR= 6.810 P-value= 0.001 C.I= 2.269 – 20.934), wealth status (OR= 3.524 P- value= 0.037 C.I= 1.079 – 11.512) and post natal care (OR= 2.324 P- value= 0.037 C.I= 1.053 – 5.128) were significant Conclusion In conclusion, mothers with secondary education and above have lower risk of experiencing infant mortality in Central Uganda