Socio-demographic and environmental determinants of child mortality in rural communities of Ogun State, Nigeria

Nigeria’s under five-mortality was 132 per 1000 in 2018. The statistic makes Nigeria the country with the third-highest under-five mortality globally. It implies that the government may not achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of 25 per 1000 births by 2030. This situation is of grave concern to policymakers and other stakeholders interested in the country’s development. This study provides unique community micro-level information on child mortality determinants in rural communities where the country's health system is weakest. The study used a sample of 1350 pregnant women aged 20-44 who attended antenatal care in22 health facilities in selected rural communities of Ogun State, South-west Nigeria. The multicollinearity diagnostics tests conducted between the dependent variable and predictors showed no abnormality in the values of the variance inflation factor, eigenvalues, and condition indexes. Logistics regression results showed that the socio-demographic characteristics such as the respondent's age, educational level, number of living children, and husband’s education directly affected child mortality. In contrast, the husband has another wife had an indirect effect on child mortality. Environmental factors that directly impacted child mortality included the type of household toilet facility, source of water supply, and household waste disposal practices. These findings indicate that policies and programs to reduce child mortality in rural Nigeria must address socio-demographic and context-specific factors, especially at the community level. (Afr J Reprod Health 2021; 25[5s]: 159-170)