An Assessment of Association between Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Infant Mortality in High Focus States in India

Neighbourhood characteristics influence infant mortality above and beyond individual/household factors. In India, there are very few studies discussing the effects of neighbourhood characteristics on infant mortality. This study examined the effect of neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics on infant mortality using data from the India’s Third District Level Household Survey conducted in 2007-2008. Multilevel analyses applied on the representative sample of 168,625 nested within 14,193 communities using MCMC procedure. Results established that place of residence, neighbourhood socio-economic factors as important determinants of infant mortality. Overall, being born in affluent (OR: 0.79, p < 0.01), more educated (OR: 0.86, p < 0.01) and socially disadvantaged caste (OR: 0.83, p < 0.01) neighbourhood was associated with the significant reduction in hazards of infant death. The finding of this study suggests that effort should be made to reduce infant mortality in these high focus states by including policies which aim at improving infant survival in the neighbourhood that is economically and socially deprived.