The Influence of Frailty on Infant and Child Mortality in Rural Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Infant and child mortality remains a major public health challenge in Nigeria and other parts of the developing world with rural areas sharing the largest burden which of course have devastating effects on concerned mothers and the population at large. This study was conducted to determine the effect of frailty and which of infant or child mortality is most affected by unobserved heterogeneity in Rural Nigeria. Methods: Data from 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey were analyzed. Weibull frailty models were fitted. The frailty effects, Hazard ratio (HR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated. Results: The frailty value in infant and child mortality are 51.8 and 56.5 percent respectively, which means that the covariates in infant and child models explained 48.2 percent and 43.5 percent family variation in infant and child deaths in rural Nigeria. Conclusion: Child mortality is more affected by unobserved heterogeneity than infant mortality in rural Nigeria.