THE TRENDS IN UNDER-FIVE INFANTS AND CHILD MORTALITY IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA.

Bako, A.R.*, Mamman, M., Jeb, D.N. and Akhadelor, M.O.

The rising trend in mortality rates in Kaduna State seem to be firmly established and this would appear as the most striking demographic phenomenon of the last seven years. While, the pattern of mortality increase in Kaduna State bears similarities to the observed pattern in the early stage of the demographic transition, it is occurring now under quite different social, economic, and medical conditions. There have been concerted efforts to reduce the rate of infant and child mortality in Kaduna State, but there have been no significant studies to show whether or not the rate of infant and child mortality is rising or falling. Data from Jema’a, Kaduna South and Zaria Local Government Areas hospitals from 2005 to 2014 were analyzed to assess the trends of infant and child mortality. A semi-structured questionnaire was purposively administered among 386 respondents in the study area. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data into frequency, averages and percentages. ANOVA and Logistic regression technique was used to determine the relative contribution of each factor responsible for under-five mortality using SPSS version 20.0 version. The result reveals that majority of the respondents 65.0% are between the ages of 20-34 years, 19.0% are in the age group of 40-49 years, 36.8% are Hausa/Fulani, and 51.0% are Muslims. The trends has been on the decrease, although the decrease is small over the years from 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 saw steady declined or no change in the trends of infant and child mortality. Logistic regression revealed that distance from the health facility 0.379, age at first marriage 0.138, age of mother 0.118, marital status 0.064, level of education 0.064 and length of breast feeding 0.054 were found to be correlated with under 5 mortality. On the basis of the findings, the study recommends that programme interventions need to focus on mothers with low socioeconomic status. The adolescent girls should be encouraged to go for educational training in schools in order to lengthen age at first birth and reduce child death at first birth order. Also, health services should be brought nearer to the local communities with a bid to increase accessibility of the mothers to medical facilities thereby reducing under-five mortality.

Key words: Accessibility, Health facilities, Mortality, Trends, Under-five.