Geographical variations in infant and child mortality in West Africa: a geo-additive discrete-time survival modelling

This study examines the residual geographical variations in infant and child mortality and how the different categories of the risk factors account for the spatial inequality in West African countries. To this end, we pooled data for 10 of the countries extracted from Demographic and Health Surveys and used the spatial extension of discrete-time survival model to examine how the variables exert influence on infant and child mortality across space. Inference was Bayesian based on the computational efficient MCMC technique. We found different geographical patterns for infant and child mortality. In the case of children under five, demographic factors inherent to the mother and child as well as maternal status variables when accounted for explain away a good part of the huge variations observed in the crude rates. There are no evidence of significant variations, however, in infant mortality except for three neighbouring regions of Liberia and Sierra Leone. The findings can guide in evidence-based allocation of scarce resources in West Africa with the aim of improving the survival chance of young children.