Geospatial, socioeconomic, demographic and health determinants of childhood mortality in Bangladesh

Every year about 13 million under-5 children die across developing countries and most of these deaths are attributed to a range of determinable factors. Over the last 15 years, although Bangladesh has achieved commendable success in the national development, the prevalence of child mortality continues to be a major public health concerns. This study aims to investigate the impact of some geospacial, socioeconomic, demographic and health factors on mortality in Bangladeshi children aged less than 5 years. A sample of 7,886 children data from the 2014 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey was modelled using both the bivariate and multivariate methodologies. Findings demonstrated that the risk of under-5 child mortality (U5CM) has been influenched by the ten selected factors in this study, among them the socio-economic factors such as parents’ education, occupation and household wealth index appeared to be the most crucial determinants. In the demographic factors, the birth status of child showed that multiple birth child had ran about 8.9 times higher risk of U5CM than single birth child. While the geospacial variable – division of residence revealed statistically significant differentials in U5CM, the health factor – vitamin A also showed that children who missed vitamin A during vaccinations were 2.9 times more likely to be died compared to their counterparts. All levels of policy makers including the local NGOs should focus on how to improve these identified socioeconomic, demographic and health characteristics and reduce apparent jurisdictional differentials for eliminating the overall child mortality in the country.