Assessing sex differences in childhood mortality

The impact of housing conditions on under-five mortality will be examined in four major capital cities of the Regional States of Ethiopia.
There had been many studies on the influence of background and demographic variables on infant and childhood mortality, but, little studies and analysis have been done to investigate the housing determinants of infant and childhood mortality, despite the fact that Ethiopia has collected abundant empirical housing data from the previous censuses and DHS studies. Accordingly, the author is motivated to know how housing components determine the quality of urban life through the health status of under- five years of children.
The rationale and objectives of this study are to explore the influence of housing variables on under-five mortality rates and suggest recommendations for awareness to the urban health planners before the end of 2015 worldwide MDG.
With respect to methodology, use of frequency distributions of univariate and bivariate tables, indirect techniques of mortality estimations(ratios of observed and expected patterns, applying appropriate model life tables across various housing characteristics) and also application of multivariate and logistic regression analysis, where under-five mortality as dependent variable and housing characteristics as covariate.

The study is an effort to analyze the effects of birth interval on neonatal and postnatal mortality
in two selected states in India. The selected states differ significantly based on its socioeconomic
development in the country. By using National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 data, the study presents distinct picture of neonatal and postnatal deaths corresponding to different birth intervals in the selected states. In a nutshell, it is evident in the study that the incidence of neonatal are more in Maharashtra whereas the occurrence of postnatal deaths are more in Uttar pradesh. Further, the deaths differentials are analyzed for different background characteristics wherein it is observed that neonatal deaths are more among males and postnatal deaths are more among females. In Uttarpradesh, the rural and urban differentials is insignificant whereas in Maharashtra the occurrence of neonatal and postnatal deaths are high in urban as compared to
rural area.

Despite their relative socioeconomic disadvantage, infants born to Mexican immigrant mothers in the United States have health outcomes that are similar to non-Hispanic whites and better than blacks. This pattern has been termed the epidemiologic paradox because it challenges prevailing understandings of racial/ethnic disparities in health. Although the epidemiologic paradox is well-documented, the mechanisms underlying the paradox remains poorly understood. We pool vital statistics data from Mexico and the U.S. to disentangle to what extent variations in birth outcomes between Mexican immigrants and non-migrants in Mexico are attributable to (1) migrant health selectivity and (2) other forms of migrant selectivity, namely age and region of origin. To do so, we will first determine whether infants born to Mexican immigrants in the US have lower rates of birth weight and pre-term births than the entire population in Mexico. Next, we will determine whether the health advantage of Mexican immigrants (over the Mexican population) persists once we age standardize the rates of low birth weight and pre-term births. Third, we will limit our sample of non-migrants in Mexico to those living in communities with high levels of migration and compare their birth outcomes with those of Mexican immigrants in the United States.

Rapid urbanization rates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have been accompanied by worsening urban child health outcomes and a narrowing of the region’s historic under-5 urban survival advantage. I use DHS data from twelve SSA countries to investigate whether there is an aggregate change in this differential between 1995-2000 and 2005-2010. I find that the urban advantage persists, but that it is weakening. I then examine whether the diminishing urban advantage is uniform across urban areas and find it is not. The overall decrease in the mortality differential is due to slower improvements in survival rates in smaller urban areas compared to the largest cities or rural areas. These findings support the growing literature which finds that rapid urbanization in SSA poses the greatest risk to improvements in child survival the smaller cities most likely to see the greatest proportional growth in the coming decades.

The income and non-income dimensions of inequalities are highest in Sub Saharan Africa among the world regions. Also these inequalities not only vary between the countries in Africa but also within the country with respect to gender, geographical areas, social and economic groups. Studies had shown that progress in MDGs indicators pertaining to child health in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa is rather slow and skeptical on achieving many of the MDGs by the year 2015. However, these studies had looked at the indicators at aggregate without considering its level and progress across gender, region, social and economic groups. Fail to consider these domains will mask the real development and in achieving the MDGs. Keeping this in view, we examine the socioeconomic, gender and geographic inequalities in child health in the selected countries of Sub-Saharan Africa in a comparative perspective. Further, this study will also explore how these domains such as socioeconomic groups, gender and geographical location interact in producing inequality in these countries. The child health indicators such as under-five mortality, child nutrition, immunization and diarrhea illness will be considered for the analysis. We use different rounds of Demographic Health Surveys and employ multilevel models, inequality indices for data analysis.

The paper addresses the impact child ‘dysnutrition’ (a child that is both stunted and overweight) has on the understanding of the Household Double Burden of Malnutrition (HHDBM - stunted child overweight mother pairs), by assessing the definition of a HHDBM as well as exploring the socioeconomic explanatory pattern of its development. In addition pre and post-natal hypotheses for the development of a HHDBM are explored. A cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative samples from 2000 onwards will be conducted. 72 Demographic and Health Surveys for low and middle income countries are used, containing anthropometric data on weight and height for both mothers and under-fives. Multinomial multilevel regression models are used to explore the HHDBM and its determinants.

This paper examines trends in rural-urban differentials in childhood malnutrition in India using multi-round of National Family Health Survey data conducted during 1992-2006. Specifically, this paper looks into two aspects: first, it assess pattern in rural-urban differentials in childhood malnutrition in India and its states over time; second, it quantifies the extent to which socio-economic and demographic characteristics can contribute to rural-urban gap in childhood malnutrition in the country. Descriptive statistics, linear regression models, and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition techniques are used in the analysis. Result shows considerable rural-urban gap in childhood malnutrition and even the gap has increased over time. The increase was due to the rapid decline in prevalence of malnutrition in urban areas compared to rural areas. Over the period, the gap has narrowed down in few states while enlarged in many states of the country. Economic status of household and parental education accounted more in explaining rural-urban gap in childhood malnutrition in the country. These findings suggest that to reduce the burgeoning malnutrition between rural-urban areas, special attention is needed to focus on the rural deprived in the country.

Background: Each year 15-30 million infants – up to 20 percent of all infants, are born with a low birth weight (LBW). This paper try to investigate the factors negatively correlated to LBW to minimize the prevalence of LBW in India based on the data (NFHS, 1992-2006). Methodology and findings: The analytic sample consisted of 0 to 36 months children with birthweight data obtained from health cards and maternal recall. The analysis done on sample in the distribution across household wealth, religion, and urban residence was compared using multilevel models. The chance of being low birth weight is almost ten percent more in poorest wealth quintile household than richest. This is consistently true from 1992 to 2006. Education is not playing direct role on LBW during 1992-2006. The place of residence is not distinctly playing role in the difference of prevalence of LBW children. India is classified here into six regions and the prevalence of LBW in north region is more than south region. The findings show that the north region is almost 50 percent more likely to have low birth weight children than south in India at 95 percent confidence interval. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the LBW is more prevalent in north, no educated women with higher birth order, and lowest wealth status household than their counterpart in India.

Health plays a vital role in acquisition and management of “life-cycle wealth” by way of building “human capabilities” in developing economies like India. As children are important potential assets of a nation, providing good health and reduce infant and child mortality is felt increasing important. In India, several efforts have been made to address the above issue. An effort has been made to examine the trends in IMRs across rural-urban areas, male-female and social groups and indentify the factors that affect IMRs.
India witnessed a persistent decline in IMR from 129 in 1971 to 50 in 2009. The IMR was higher in rural than in urban areas. The decline in IMR in rural areas is found to be much faster than in urban areas. Across social groups, the IMRs were higher among scheduled castes (SCs)/scheduled tribes (STs)-historically exploited sections of the society- compared to other backward castes (OBCs) and Others. The net state domestic product, the female work participation rate (WPR), poverty, the rate of female literacy and the health infrastructures are found to important factors that affect IMR. In a bid to reduce IMR further, improving female's education and their access to employment and reduction in poverty should be accorded top priority in the development paradigm of India.

Son preference refers to the attitude that sons are more important and more valuable than daughters. A complex interplay of economic and social factors determines the benefits and cost of a child. Son preference is still very strong in India. In order to maintain small families and have desired sex composition of the children, people may try methods such as sex selective abortion. Therefore this paper tries to look into, the desire of women to have at least one male child and child care. It is assumed that the child care may be better for the male child. The study uses primary in 2010, the sample size is 330. The study area comprises of 11 villages from Rajarhat CD block of 24-north Parganas in West Bengal, India. The results show higher percentage of women desired to have at least one male child, women stated economic and social reasons for wanting at least one male child. The child care shows that almost similar care was taken for both male and female children, irrespective of the fact that high percentage of women wanted male children. Much significant difference in the time spent on child care and daily child care is seen for the male and the female children. The preference for male child is more in terms of desire but this necessarily does not transform into discriminatory practices in the day to day child care