Socioeconomic Determinants of Child Mortality in Myanmar: Multi-level Analysis of 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census

Background: Investing in child health is crucial for the nation’s health as well as its socio-economic development and it can foster the balanced of population dynamics. There is emerging evidence that the child mortality in Myanmar is raising a serious concern because the declining trend of child mortality has come to a slow force in past years. This study aims to investigate the socioeconomic determinants of infant and under-five mortality in Myanmar by using theoretical frameworks of Mosley and Chen's (1984) and Klaauw and Wang's Framework (2009).  Methods: The recent 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census provided the present study the raw data. Since the unit of analysis was child-based analysis belong to married women (15-54 years), it was restricted to the last live births in the last one year (for infant, n= 47,547) and last five years (for under-five, n=177,036) before the census date; who were also nested within 431 communities. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were performed for the background of the study. The simple regression analysis and path analysis were applied to identify the contextual effect of socio-economic determinants. The logistic regression analysis was done to determine the differential determinants of Myanmar, and its States and Regions. Multi-level mixed effect model was finally achieved to examine the multi-level effects once individual, household and community factors are controlled. Results: The descriptive findings show that infancy life has more risky than under-five stated by 3.1 % of infant were experienced in death while only 2.6 % of under-five were died. This study found the different level of socio-economic factors having an impact on the infant and under-five mortality. There was a statistically significant variation of determinants across the regions. The child factor (sex for under-five), the maternal factors (age at child death, education, employment; head of household for infant), the household factor (living with bamboo house, household wealth, access to safe latrine for under-five) and community factor (electricity coverage) were the most important predictors to explain the child mortality in Myanmar. Conclusion: The findings support to the knowledge gap on public health and population research on child mortality in Myanmar. The appropriate policy and programs intervention will be performed based on the findings for improving child health in Myanmar.

 

Keyword: child mortality, infant mortality, under-five mortality, socioeconomic determinants, Myanmar