Refined Estimates of Childhood and Adult Mortality in Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa: Regional Differences

Childhood and Adult Mortality (CAM) remain public health problems in Nigeria. Despite variations in socio-cultural and access to health care in regions in Nigeria which have been linked with mortality, literature on differential in CAM by region is scarce. Among the available few, information in which their estimates were based are often unreliable due to problems with death data. This study was designed to fill the gap. It utilized NDHS 2008(n=33,385), women-data. Brass 1-parameter & INDEPTH life tables were used to estimate CAM respectively. The survival probability of females was higher than males at both childhood and adulthood. Under-5 mortality was found to be highest in northwest (Males: 1q0=153/1000; 5q0=223/1000 and Females: 1q0=132/1000; 5q0=205/1000) and lowest in southwest (Males: 1q0=71/1000; 5q0=95/1000 and Females: 1q0=56/1000; 5q0=78/1000). Also, probability of dying at age 60 when an individual has survived to age 15(45q15) was lowest in southwest (Male=0.3344;Females=0.2756), highest in northwest (Male=0.4968; Females=0.4072) and higher among males than females. Mortality in Nigeria is high and hard hit region is northwest. The refined estimates of under-5 mortality in Nigeria obtained in this study are higher than estimates in NDHS report. Thus, there might be need for data adjustment in the subsequent report.