Childhood Mortality in Kenya: An Examination of Trends and Determinants in the Late 1980s to Mid 1990s

After Independence in the early 1960s, child mortality in Kenya fell rapidly. Until around 1980, the under 5 mortality rate (U5MR), the probability of dying by age 5, fell at an annual rate of about 4 percent per annum. This rate of decline slowed in the early 1980s, to about 2 per cent per annum. Recent data from the 1998 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey showed that, far from declining, the U5MR increased by as much as 25 percent from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. This adverse trend coincided with a number of other adverse trends: stagnation in growth of per capita income, declining levels of immunization, falling school enrolment, and the emergence of an HIV/AIDS epidemic. On a more positive note, fertility fell by about 30 percent from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s.