Midi de la recherche

21 novembre 2017

Collège J. Leclercq

Akansha Singh (DEMO, UCL), Making sense of spatial heterogeneity of child mortality at district level in India, 1991-2011

à 12h45, au LECL 61

 

India has been characterized by higher child mortality rates with significant interstate and interdistrict variation within the country. Existing literature has examined the relationship between child mortality rates levels and demographic, social, economic, and development factors. However, the possible spatial heterogeneity in these relationships has not been investigated. The objective of this study to examine the spatial heterogeneity in the relationship of socioeconomic, demographic and development factors with child mortality from 1991 to 2011.  Using geocoded district level data as per 1991 census, this study uses geographically weighted regression to identify place-specific relationships between child mortality rate and the demographic and socioeconomic factors for the year 1991, 2001 and 2011. We find that relationship between child mortality and higher order births, female education, access to sanitation, blacktopped roads and medical facilities in rural areas shows significant spatial variation in terms of direction, strength, and magnitude. The strength and magnitude of these relationships also changed considerably over time. Strong positive relationship between higher order births and under-five mortality was observed for large number of districts in 1991, and strong negative relationship of female literacy, blacktopped roads and medical facilities in rural areas with under five mortality has been observed in many districts in 2011.