BackgroundStillbirth is often defined as fetal death after 24 weeks of gestation, but a fetus greater than any combination of 16, 20, 22, 24, or 28 weeks gestational age and 350 g, 400 g, 500 g, or 1000 g birth weight may be considered stillborn depending on local law. Once the fetus has died, the mother may or may not have contractions and undergo childbirth or in some cases, a Caesarean section. Most stillbirths occur in full-term pregnancies.MethodsThis study has intended to model determinants of experiencing stillbirth among women in child bearing age group of Ethiopia using the Ethiopian demographic and health Survey data (EDHS, 2011). First, the bivariate chi-square test of association was fitted to the data and significant variables were considered for further investigation binary logistic regression models were fitted.ResultsThis study revealed that the rate of experiencing stillbirth among women of child bearing age was about 25.5 per 1000 deliveries in Ethiopia. From binary logistic regression, region of residence, maternal age, place of residence, education level, parity, antenatal care utilization, place of delivery, body mass index (BMI) and anemia level were found to be significantly associated with experiencing stillbirth.ConclusionsResearchers should use multilevel models than traditional regression methods when their data structure is hierarchical as like in Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey data.

Objective: Stillbirth is often defined as fetal death after 24 weeks of gestation, but a fetus greater than any combination of 16, 20, 22, 24, or 28 weeks gestational age and 350g, 400g, 500g, or 1000g birth weight may be considered stillborn depending on local law. Once the fetus has died, the mother may or may not have contractions and undergo childbirth or in some cases, a Caesarean section. Most stillbirths occur in full-term pregnancies. If all causes of stillbirth are taken together, the new estimates would place stillbirths fifth on the list of causes of deaths (COD) worldwide. Each year, about 3 million families worldwide will experience a stillbirth. This study has intended to model determinants of experiencing stillbirth among women in child bearing age group of Ethiopia using the Ethiopian demographic and health Survey data. Material and Methods: First, the bivariate chi-square test of association was fitted to the data and significant variables were considered for further investigation in binary logistic regression model. Lastly, the multilevel models were fitted. Results: This study revealed that the rate of experiencing stillbirth among women of child bearing age was about 25.5 per 1000 deliveries in Ethiopia. From binary logistic regression, region of residence, maternal age, place of residence, education level, parity, antenatal care utilization, place of delivery, body mass index (BMI) and anemia level were found to be significantly associated with experiencing stillbirth. From multilevel logistic regression, it was found that the random intercept model provided the best fit for the data under consideration. The variance of the random component related to the intercept term was found to be statistically significant implying differences in prevalence of experiencing stillbirth among the regions. And in this random intercept model, age group, type of place of residence, antenatal care visit and delivery place were found to be statistically significant factors for experiencing stillbirth among regions. Conclusion: Mothers should prefer and people who are around them should advise them to give birth at health centers than delivering at home. Especially older age women, above 35 years, should be more careful for difficulties that come with age, like hypertension and should visit antenatal care during pregnancy. Further studies should be conducted to identify other correlates of stillbirth that are not included and confirm the variables which are insignificant in this study because of many reasons and since regional variation are found significant spatial models can be applied to investigate spatial variations of experiencing stillbirth.Keywords: Stillbirth; antenatal care visit; multilevel logistic regression; Ethiopia ÖZET Amaç: Ölü doğum sıklıkla, hamileliğin 24. haftasından sonra yaşanan cenin ölümü olarak tanımlanmaktadır ancak hamilelik dönemlerinden 16, 20, 22, 24 veya 28 hafta ve 350 g, 400 g, 500 g veya 1000 g doğum kilosunun herhangi bir kombinasyonundan büyük olan cenin, yerel yas...

Background Mortality rate under the age of five is the proportion of deaths of children below the age of 5 years out of 1000 live births. It is related with the living standard of a population, and it is taken as one of the health and socioeconomic status deterioration index. Mortality rate under the age of five also indicates a poor quality life standards of a population. It is very significantly high in Sub-Saharan African countries. Ethiopia is one of these Sub-Saharan African countries where mortality rate under the age five is high. This research work aims to identify the determinants and associated factors of under-five mortality in Ethiopia. Methods The data for this paper were gathered from the EDHS 2016, collected by CSA. In this study, count family models such as Poisson, negative binomial, zero-inflated Poisson and zero-inflated negative binomial regression were applied for analyzing the data. Each of these count models were compared with different statistical tests like log-likelihood ratio test, Akaike information criteria, mean absolute difference, Vuong test and observed versus predicted probability plot. Results The study revealed that as mothers’ age at first birth increased by one unit, the average number of under-five mortality rate decreased by 2.69%. In the same way the number of under-five mortality of Afar, Benishangul Gumuz and Dire Dawa were 1.3446, 1.6429 and 1.3320 times more likely to Tigray respectively. The risk of under-five mortality for primary and secondary education level of the mother was 28.31 and 40.96% less likely than to mothers who have no education respectively. Conclusion From the result we found that, there were overabundance zeros and broad heterogeneity in the non-zero outcomes. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression model was found to best fit the data, and from the regression model, age of mothers at first birth, mother’s education level, place of residence and region were statistically significant factors of under-five mortality per mother.