Differentials and determinants of Infants Mortality between North Eastern and South Western Nigeria

Fagbamigbe A. F., Adebowale A. S., Alabi O.
Abstract
Infant mortality rate (IMR) is a demographic measure and important health and economic indicator. The Nigeria Demographic and Household Survey (NDHS, 2008) declared wide difference between IMR in North East (NE) and South West (SW). This study assessed the zonal differences and determined factors affecting IMR in the zones.
This is a cross sectional study of nationally representative NDHS, 2008 data using recoded data of 164,209 and 82,744 children from NE and SW Nigeria respectively. We censored and weighted the data and analyzed using descriptive, bivariate statistics and binary logistic regression with p-value=0.05.
Mean age of mothers at first birth was 17.84(3.40) and 20.65(4.25) years respectively (p<0.05) nearly 74% of children from NE are from uneducated mothers compared to 6.88% in the SW (p<0.05). Almost half (46.48%) of children from NE had poorest wealth index compared to 6.50% in SW (p<0.05). The IMR among children from teenager mothers is 21 and 9 per 1000 live births in NE and SW respectively, 10 for urban NE, 6 for urban NE, 12 for rural NE and 9 for rural SW (p<0.05).
Efforts should be directed at in reducing the IMR in NE through education, economic empowerment and delayed childbearing.
Key world: Infant Mortality Rate, NDHS, Wealth index