Determinants of infant and child mortality in Zimbabwe: Results of multivariate hazard analysis

This study addresses important issues in infant and child mortality in Zimbabwe. The objective of the paper is to determine the impact of maternal, socioeconomic and sanitation variables on infant and child mortality. Results show that births of order 6+ with a short preceding interval had the highest risk of infant mortality. The infant mortality risk associated with multiple births was 2.08 times higher relative to singleton births (p<0.001). Socioeconomic variables did not have a distinct impact on infant mortality. Determinants of child mortality were different in relative importance from those of infant mortality. This study supports health policy initiatives to stimulate use of family planning methods to increase birth spacing. These and other results are expected to assist policy makers and programme managers in the child health sector to formulate appropriate strategies to improve the situation of children under 5 in Zimbabwe. 1 Joshua Kembo is a Senior Researcher in the Bureau of Market Research (BMR) at the University of South Africa (UNISA). He recently completed his PhD (Epidemiology) in the School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH) at the University of Pretoria. Corresponding contact e-mail address is [email protected]. 2 Jeroen Van Ginneken is Visiting Professor, School of Health Systems and Public Health, University of Pretoria and Honorary Fellow, NIDI, The Hague. Kembo & Van Ginneken: Determinants of infant and child mortality in Zimbabwe 368 http://www.demographic-research.org