THE PATTERN AND DETERMINANTS OF INFANT MORTALITY IN RURAL NIGERIA
Abstract
Nigeria. The data for this study were obtained from household questionnaire surveys administered to 140 randomly selected households who have experienced infant mortality in the five years preceding this study. From the data generated descriptive statistics was used to analyze the pattern of infant death in the study area. In addition, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of infant mortality in the study area. the results show that almost half (49percent) of the respondents have experienced infant mortality in the past five years, while 35percent of all infant mortality in occurs in the first month of birth. The PCA also extracted six underlying components of that together explained 73.42percent of the cumulative variance in the determinants of infant mortality. The components are mother's economic status, nature of care for the infant, quality of household infrastructure, maternal age, quality of life of the infant, and quality of attention given to the infant. Based on the results, recommendations such as improvement of health facilities and education of the girl child are made to help reduce the incidence of infant mortality in the rural areas.
KEYWORDS:Â Abia community; Infant Mortality; Determinants; Pattern;Â Rural Nigeria
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