Priority setting towards achieving under-five mortality target in Africa in context of sustainable development goals: an ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis.

Autor: Acheampong M; 1Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability, Suffolk University, 8 Ashburton Pl, Boston, MA 02108 USA., Ejiofor C; 2College of Public Health, University of South Florida, 13201 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. MDC 56, Tampa, FL 33612 USA., Salinas-Miranda A; 2College of Public Health, University of South Florida, 13201 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. MDC 56, Tampa, FL 33612 USA., Wall B; 3College of Communications and Journalism, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA., Yu Q; 4School of Geosciences, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL 33620 USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Global health research and policy [Glob Health Res Policy] 2019 Jun 26; Vol. 4, pp. 3. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Jun 26 (Print Publication: 2019).
DOI: 10.1186/s41256-019-0108-0
Abstrakt: Background: Africa reduced its under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) by more than 50% during the MDGs era. However, it still has by far the highest average U5MR in the world - 81 deaths compared to a global average of 43 deaths per 1000 births, with eight of the ten countries in the world with the highest child mortality rates. The primary objective of our study was to examine the socioeconomic, healthcare, and environmental determinants that most account for U5MR disparities between African countries.
Methods: We used a series of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models to assess the effects of 14 distinct socioeconomic, environmental and healthcare variables that account for the high U5MR differentials that persist between African countries. We conducted our analysis on 43 countries for which data were available. Using a dummy variable, we also emphasized factors that may be accounting for the disparity between the eight worst-performing countries and the remainder of the continent.
Results: Among all the determinants analyzed in our study, the results reveal that the factors that most account for the inequities observed are, in order, expenditure on healthcare ( p  < 0.01), total fertility rate ( p  < 0.01), income per capita ( p  < 0.05), and access to clean water ( p  < 0.1).
Conclusions: Our results show that the gap between the best and worst performing countries in Africa can be significantly narrowed if government and donor interventions will target downstream factors such as improving education for mothers and sensitising them about birth control since fertility rate differences play a critical role. Improving accessibility to clean water sources to reduce outbreaks of diarrhea diseases is also observed as a critical factor.
Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz: