Early Childhood Mortality and Associated Factors in Ethiopia: Mini Demographic and Health Survey 2019

Abstract

Background: Early childhood mortality is a major problem in terms of demographics, health, and development and factors that determine the size and growth rate of a population, as well as its ages and genders, along with its spatial distribution. The aim of this study was to determine factors associated with Early childhood mortality among children aged 0–59 months. Methods: The data for this study was extracted from Ethiopia mini demographic and health survey 2019. The study involved 5414 women with children aged 0–59 months in a weighted sample. The analysis was performed using STATA version 16 software. Using sampling weights for descriptive statistics and complex sample designs for inferential statistics, backward stepwise elimination was manually applied. Finally, statistical significance declared at the level of p-value < 0.05. Result: The prevalence of early childhood mortality in Ethiopia was observed to be 5.8%. In multivariate analysis the household wealth index, children from the poorest-wealth index (AOR = 1.211, 95% CI: 0.716-2.047) had higher odds of early childhood mortality in comparison to children from the richer wealth index. The odds of early childhood mortality were thirteen times higher among children born with twins’ birth as compared to single birth, (AOR = 13.615, 95% CI: 6.399-28.965). The odds of early childhood mortality were lower among children delivered in a health facility as compared to home delivery (AOR = 0.936, 95% CI: 0.893-0.982). The odds of early childhood mortality were lower among tube well sources of drinking water as compared to piped sources of drinking water (AOR = 0.7128, 95% CI: 0.322-1.599). The odds of early childhood mortality were higher among pit latrine-type toilet facilities as compared to flush-type toilet facilities (AOR = 2.056, 95% CI: 1.319-3.207). Conclusion: The prevalence of early childhood mortality in Ethiopia shows high risk and it is significantly associated with household wealth index, type of birth, place of delivery, sources of drinking water, and types of toilet facilities. Increasing the coverage and access to early childhood education, governmental and non-governmental organizations and all concerned stakeholders should be prioritized as the major determinants of early childhood mortality.