A Conceptual Model of Feto-infant Mortality in Late and Low Fertility Context1

Many researches have been undertaken in order to detect the influence of social and biological factors on feto-infant mortality. The epidemiological and medical literature focuses more on the biological factors while the demographic literature focuses on social factors. The awareness by social scientists of the importance of linking both types of factors in order to understand the feto-infant mortality process is not new however (e.g. Gortmaker (1979), Mosley and Chen (1984), Cramer (1987)). In other words, authors generally recognise that the search for the determinants of feto-infant mortality has to pass through a conceptual framework, namely a comprehension of the direct and indirect mechanisms leading to feto-infant death. Simplifying the pathway, socio-economic factors influence biological factors which ultimately play a role on feto-infant mortality. The general idea behind the construction of a conceptual framework is to highlight the causal mechanisms leading to a particular event, in this present case to feto-infant death. Based on a conceptual framework, any relation has to be interpreted from a causal point of view rather than a simple association between two or more variables.