Factors affecting under-five child mortality in Bangladesh: Cox proportional hazard model and cox frailty model

Introduction: Bangladesh is a developing country with a large population. It experienced a significant reduction in under-five child mortality over the past few decades. Nevertheless, the rate of under-five child mortality is still high in Bangladesh. This study aimed to determine the risk factors of under-five child mortality. Methods:In this study, the dataset from the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey- 2014 was assessed. We utilized the information on 7760 children that were born in the five years preceding the survey; 314 did not survive, and 7346 were still alive at the time of the survey. The Cox proportional hazard model and the Cox frailty model for testing unobserved heterogeneity among children were used to determining the factors affecting under-five child mortality. Results:Our results revealed that multiplicity of birth, preceding birth interval, number of antenatal care visits, place of delivery, child-size at birth, total children ever born, and number of living children were the main factors for under-five child mortality. These results also showed that the variance of frailty term was 0.000361. Conclusion:Our findings highlight the potential risk factors associated with under-five child mortality in Bangladesh. According to our results, it is evident that special attention should be given to these significant predictors, which may increase the under-five child survival.

Keywords:

Under-five child mortality , Cox proportional hazard model , Cox frailty model