Why the increase in under five mortality in Uganda from 1995 to 2000? A retrospective analysis

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Natal Ayiga¹  Fred Nuwaha²  Juliet Babirye² 

[1] Institue of Statistics and Applied Economics, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7072, Kampala, Uganda;School of Public Health, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7072, Kampala, Uganda;

关键词: Malaria;    Gross Domestic Product;    Western Region;    Childhood Mortality;    Transmission Area;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-11-725

 received in 2011-05-05, accepted in 2011-09-25,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFrom 1995-2000 the under five mortality rate in Uganda increased from 147.3 to 151.5 deaths per 1000 live births and reasons for the increase were not clear. This study was undertaken to understand factors influencing the increase in under five mortality rate during 1995-2000 in Uganda with a view of suggesting remedial actions.MethodsWe performed a comparative retrospective analysis of data derived from the 1995 and the 2000 Uganda demographic and health surveys. We correlated the change of under five mortality rate in Uganda desegregated by region (central, eastern, north and western) with change in major known determinants of under five mortality such social economic circumstances, maternal factors, access to health services, and level of nutrition.ResultsThe increase in under five mortality rate only happened in western Uganda with the other 3 regions of Uganda (eastern, northern and central) showing a decrease. The changes in U5MR could not be explained by changes in poverty, maternal conditions, level of nutrition, or in access to health and other social services and in the prevalence of HIV among women attending for ante-natal care. All these factors did not reach statistical significance (P > 0.05) using Pearson's correlation coefficient.ConclusionIn order to explain these findings, there is need to find something that happened in western Uganda (but not other parts of the country) during the period 1995-2000 and has the potential to change the under five mortality by a big margin. We hypothesize that the increase in under five mortality could be explained by the severe malaria epidemic that occurred in western Uganda (but not other regions) in 1997/98.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Nuwaha et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011