Re-estimating infant mortality trends in Azerbaijan since the 1960s

In the Caucasus region, data quality has always been at issue, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the issue becomes more acute. In the 1990s mortality rates published by national statistics of Armenia and Georgia were far from the real levels. In this paper, we are going to focus on the third Caucasian country Azerbaijan and to propose adjusted infant mortality rates.
For the 1990s and the 2000s, it is possible to rely on results issued of recent demographic surveys to estimate the under-registration of infant deaths. After producing new estimates for the last two decades we discuss possible assumptions to correct the levels of infant mortality during the Soviet period, using information on mortality by month of age and by cause of death below age 1.