Correlates of neonatal mortality in Kenya
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Date
1993-09Author
Kenyi, Joseph Lodiong
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Despite the acknowledged importance of neonatal mortality in
terms of its critical contribution to one year deaths, very little
attention has been paid to this in terms of the number of
researches carried out at the Population studies and Research
Institute, University of Nairobi. This is not surprising at all
because neonatal deaths are believed to be mainly biologically
caused for which social scientists have no remedial solutions to
offer. Yet evidence emerging from other- developing countries
indicates the overwhelming importance of socio-economic factors in
reducing endogenous causes of mortality. Hence, there is a lot for
social scientists to offer in terms of community based studies,
using several sources of data. The general objective of this study is to explore the
associations of socio-economic, socio-cultural, demographic,
environmental and health factors with neonatal mortality. These
associations are explored using information on birth histories of
7150 women in the reproductive age grcmp 15,-49. In total the study
includes 198 neonates who are born and died during the five year,
preceding the survey.
A number of statistical techniques of analysis including
descriptive statistics, multiple and logistic regression models and
relative risk method were used. While some of the results are inconsistent with what is in the
literature resume, this study has confirmed the universally
accepted view that during the neonatal period endogenous rather than exogenous factors (i.e., socio-economic, socio-cultural,
demographic, environment and health factors) are most important
statistically in providing explanation of the variation in neonatal
mortality. It should be emphasized that other exogenous factors
such as paternal characteristics which have not been captured by
the analysis could also be important predictors of neonatal
mortality. Furthermore, this study has shown wide variation in the
correlates of neonatal mortality across the five years preceding
the survey. This suggests the aeas ona L nature .of the causes of
neonatal mortality. Based on these findings the studies recommends the following:
(1) Longitudinal rather than retrospective studies should be
carried out with biological factors and .pat~rnal characteristics
included, using logistics and multiple-regression models and data
from several sources.
(2) The actual causes of neonatal mortality and their periodicity
of occurrence should be closely monitored and studied at the micro
level (i.e.,.district level) and on monthly and yearly basis since
planning process in the country is essentially district focused. -.
(3) The present network of family planning programme should be
strengthened through access to medical facilities and training and
equipping nurses and traditional birth attendants in order to
encourage or stimulate good social and economic behaviour. The same
information can be passed through encouraging women education, bot~
formal and informal. Furthermore, immunization coverage should be
extended to include all women in the reproductive age group 15-19. (4) The environment should be improved in general since
environmental factors affect both the under fives and under ones.
Sponsorhip
University of NairobiPublisher
Department of Population Studies & Research Institute, University of Nairobi