Abstract
Neonatal, infant, and Under-five mortality remain high with a slight improvement over the decades in Nigeria. This paper identifies the effect of maternal and health care practices on under-five survival in Nigeria. This study considers the risk of dying for 0–60 months children with identification of the time period of survival to death across the six geopolitical regions in Nigeria. The study uses data from the Demographic and Health Survey 2018 being the latest in Nigeria to explain the underlying factors associated with under-five mortality. The Kaplan Meier analysis and the Cox proportional regression were used to estimate the time between the period of birth and the event of death. Findings revealed that up to 71% of death in under-five children occurred between 0 and 12 months with a decrease in risk found as age increase after 24 months. All death occurred in children with no intake of any vaccination, 69% in children not delivered at government or private health centres, and 74% in rural communities, Result of the Cox proportional hazard regression indicates that mother’s age 15–30, education, poor nutrition and unchecked breastfeeding practices after birth increases the hazard of child mortality.
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Availability of data and materials
The dataset for this study is available in the online DHS archive [https://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm]. Permission from the DHS program is required to access the data. The principal author has obtained permission to use the dataset and anybody in need can request from DHS.
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KFA conceptualize the topic and prepares the background, KFA and LIJ prepared the literature, the Dataset was extracted by KFA and analysed. All authors discussed the findings and approve the paper.
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Akeju, K.F., Jegede, L.I., Oluyemo, C.A. et al. Explaining regional variations in child survival in Nigeria: Evidence from demographic and health survey. GeoJournal 87, 3091–3100 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10420-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10420-7