Do Poverty and Economic Inequality Matter for Neonatal Mortality? International Comparison of Macro-Level Deterministic Patterns of Early-Age Mortality
{"title":"Do Poverty and Economic Inequality Matter for Neonatal Mortality? International Comparison of Macro-Level Deterministic Patterns of Early-Age Mortality","authors":"Filippo Temporin","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1973-2201/8566","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"While socioeconomic determinants of infant mortality have received substantial attention in the literature, determinants of neonatal and post-neonatal mortality have rarely been analysed and compared. By making use ofWorld Bank data, this country-level study aims to highlight different patterns of association of poverty and income inequality with mortality occurring in the neonatal and post-neonatal periods, controlling for other socioeconomic variables. Poverty is found to be the major determinant of both mortality outcomes, while economic inequality is not a predictor of early-age mortality. This is perhaps because this analysis considers only countries where many households may lack resources for an adequate living standard; in such a context, the absolute level of poverty, rather than its distribution, has an effect on infant health. Moreover, a non-monetary manifestation of poverty, namely access to clean water, is a predictor of both mortality outcomes, probably due to its association with water-borne diseases. By identifying the socioeconomic factors associated with early-age mortality, this study has implications for social policies designed to tackle neonatal and post-neonatal mortality and can partly explain the stagnation in neonatal mortality rates observed over the last decades.","PeriodicalId":45117,"journal":{"name":"Statistica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2019-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Statistica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1973-2201/8566","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"STATISTICS & PROBABILITY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
While socioeconomic determinants of infant mortality have received substantial attention in the literature, determinants of neonatal and post-neonatal mortality have rarely been analysed and compared. By making use ofWorld Bank data, this country-level study aims to highlight different patterns of association of poverty and income inequality with mortality occurring in the neonatal and post-neonatal periods, controlling for other socioeconomic variables. Poverty is found to be the major determinant of both mortality outcomes, while economic inequality is not a predictor of early-age mortality. This is perhaps because this analysis considers only countries where many households may lack resources for an adequate living standard; in such a context, the absolute level of poverty, rather than its distribution, has an effect on infant health. Moreover, a non-monetary manifestation of poverty, namely access to clean water, is a predictor of both mortality outcomes, probably due to its association with water-borne diseases. By identifying the socioeconomic factors associated with early-age mortality, this study has implications for social policies designed to tackle neonatal and post-neonatal mortality and can partly explain the stagnation in neonatal mortality rates observed over the last decades.