FFECT OF IMMUNIZATION TO THE GLOBAL INFANT MORTALITY RATE.

EFFECT OF IMMUNIZATION TO THE GLOBAL INFANT MORTALITY RATE.

Introduction

Infant mortality is often used to indicate the death of young children under the age of five years. It is an indicator of the socio-economic development of a country. Since infants are more than any other age-group of a population, they depend heavily on the socio-economic condition of their environment for survival. The current health condition of a country is thus measured by the level of infant mortality. The researchers have documented evidence associated with infant mortality. Over several years, the level of infant mortality has been reported to decrease. According to Eastwood et al. (2011), infant mortality is associated with socioeconomic, environmental, and demographic factors. The researchers have shown that the most causative factor of infant mortality is premature birth. Other factors increasing infant mortality include;  diarrhea, measles, malaria, and malnutrition. The infant mortality is not constant in all the regions but differs with geographical area and season. It is, therefore, essential to immunize the infants against diseases like measles, polio, and tetanus (Koenig, Fauveau and Wojtyniak, 1991).

Furthermore, the immunization does protect not only immunized infants from diseases but also keeps other infants safe from dangerous conditions historically known to spread among the infants. According to Henderson, et al. (1991), despite doctors’ efforts to keep up with immunization, the researchers have shown that there is still some percentage of infants who are missing one or more routine vaccination. Globally, access to clean water, improving sanitation, and taking public health measures will also assist in reducing infant mortality.

In the 1990s, about nine million infants of bellow one year died across the world. Government, health practitioners, and NGOs have worked together to reduce infant mortality rates. They have created policies and programs for better health care for both the mother and the child. Efforts to better sanitation, increase in household income has decreased health outbreaks, and also access to better health care. Education campaign has also increased awareness to the public, therefore, reducing infant and mother mortality cases over a few years. The current research has shown that the number has almost halved (Rosser, 2013). The study aims at investigating the effect of immunization of infants aging one year to the level of infant mortality between 1990 and 2013. Many researchers have concentrated much on showing how social, economic factors affect infant mortality rate. The study was considered attractive as it focuses on the medical element (immunization), which is very easy to employ to reduce infant mortality rates globally. Using the data “Reduced by two-third, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate” from Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  The study will also be essential at showing whether the world’s health condition has improved or not. The main questions of the study are;

1. Is there a significant difference between infant mortality between 1990 and 2013?
2. Whether there is a significant difference between the mortality of infants below one year and bellow five years?.
3. Whether infant mortality of children below five years is higher than the death of children below one year?.
4. What is the association between immunization and infant mortality levels?

Methodology

The study uses secondary data from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  MDGs were signed in 2000 to combat poverty, hunger, discrimination, and diseases. Infant mortality data, containing data of mortality of infants below five years, below one year, and the immunization data of infants of on year. Infant mortality data (bellow five years and below one year) will help in determining whether there is a decrease in infant mortality between 1990 and 2013.  Immunization data will assist in determining whether there is an association between immunization and infant mortality.

Descriptive analysis (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test and correlation) were used in the analysis of the data. One sample T-test to show whether the mortality in 1990 is higher than in 2013. Here one-sample t-test is used because the test is in one direction. On the other hand, the study would like to know whether the difference between the mortality of infants below five years and below one year is significant. In this scenario, a two-sample T-test is used.

Furthermore, the researcher wanted to know whether the level of infant mortality bellow five years is below the mortality of infants below one year. In this scenario, descriptive statistics are used here to compare the mean between the two variable data. It was found interesting as we expect the mortality rate to decrease for the infants above one year through immunization. Since the statistical package for social science (SPSS) have no one-tailed t-test, therefore, the significance value is adjusted by dividing by two. Lastly, correlation is used to shoe whether immunization of infants of one year old reduces the rate of mortality.  The study assumes that the data used was normally distributed. The analysis was done using an IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22, at a 95% confidence interval.

Results

First Scenario

T-Test

Table 1.0

From table 1.0, the mean difference between the total infant mortality (bellow one year and bellow five years) is 17685.15. With a deviation from the mean of 8438.117.

From table 1.1, it is clear that the t-value is 2.964 with a p-value =0.207, which is higher than the significance value at 95% confidence interval (0.05).

Second scenario

Table 2.1 shows that the correlation between infants bellow five years and infants below one year are 1.000. Therefore, a strong association between the variables.

The paired sample t-test from table 2.2 shows a significance value of 0.000. It shows that there is no significant difference between the infants’ mortality below five years and bellows one year. That is, the variable is directly proportional to each other.

Third scenario

Descriptives

Table 3.1 shows descriptive statistics for infant mortality below 0ne year and bellow five years. The mean statistics shows that the infant mortality of bellow five years is higher than the infant mortality below one year (mean statistics are 10477.6250 and 729.9083 respectively). The between 1990 and 2013, the highest experienced infant mortality was 14049.00 (infants below five years) and 9602.80 (infants below one year). The minimum level was 6743.20 and 4975.3, respectively.

Figure 3.0: infants’ mortality histogram.

The graph 3.0 represent infant mortality below five years (blue bars) and infant mortality below one year (green bars). From the graph above, it is clear that infant mortality of infants below five years is higher than below one year. The unique thing with this graph is that it shows that the infant mortality of below five years decreases at a high rate than the mortality rate of infants below one year.

Fourth scenario

Correlations

From the above correlation table, the Pearson Correlation coefficient is -0.931. It is clear that there is a strong negative correlation between the immunization and the difference in infant mortality rate. That is, the higher the number of infants immunized, the small the number of infants mortality. The correlation is significant as the p-value =0.01, which is less than 0.05 at 955 confidence intervals.

Figure 4.0: General mortality trend

From the graph above, the mean difference between the mortality of infants below 5 years and infants bellow one year decreases with time.

Discussion

Results from a comparative analysis of infant mortality in the world showed that there is a decrease in the level of mortality between 1990 and 2013. Through an inferential analysis carried out in the study, the mean difference between 1990 infant mortality and 2013 infant mortality was 17685.15, associated with a P-value= .215. Since the probability value is higher than the level of significance at a 95% confidence interval, we conclude that the difference is significant. Therefore, 2013 has a smaller infant mortality level than in 1990. On investigating whether there is a significant difference between the mortality level of infants bellow five years and those bellow one year, the inferential statistics (Paired Samples Test) show a significant value=0.000. Therefore, the study concluded that there was no significant difference between the two mortalities. Hence, both mortalities for infants bellow 5years and bellow one year decreases continuously during the period of study (Roser, 2013).

The study was also interested in finding whether the mortality of infants bellow one year is smaller than the death of infants below five years. By using descriptive statistics, the study shows that the low infant mortality below five years (10477.625) is higher than the level of infants bellow one year (7291.9083). It was assumed that the difference might have occurred as a result of the difference in the number of infants within these ages. Infants below five years are likely to be more than infants bellow one year. Furthermore, infants below one year are also included in infants below five years. The rate at which the infant mortality (below five years) decreases is higher than that of infants below one year.  At the age of 1 year, infants are vaccinated against diseases like polio, measles, and tetanus, which are the leading cause of death to infants. It is, therefore, expected that the rate of mortality would decrease.  Most infants will die at the age of bellow one year as a result of premature birth, congenital malformation, and also complications as a result of childbirth. The term birth complications include neonatal infections and prolonged labor. Other causes may include measles, low body weight, pneumonia, and malnutrition.

According to Castagnini et al. (2011), immunization reduces the infant mortality rate. On examining the effect of vaccination of infants aging one year to the level of mortality, the correlation analysis gave a Pearson Correlation value of -0.931, which indicates a strong negative correlation. Therefore, immunization lowers the rate of infant mortality. It is true because the vaccine reduces the number of factors that cause infant mortality. Infant mortality shows a constant decrease from 1990 to 2013, as figure 4.0 shows (Castagnini, et al. 2011).

Conclusion

The analytical findings confirm some hypotheses to be true while others not. Based on the literature review, the infant mortality rate has globally decreased almost by half from 1990 to 2013 (Roser, 2013). As a way to reduce infant mortality rate, immunization was introduced to infants of one year old. The study has successfully shown that immunization has decreased infant mortality (Pearson Correlation coefficient = -0.931 showing strong negative correlation). It also supported the literature review “infant mortality has decreased from 1990 to 2013 by almost half”. Parents are therefore encouraged to immunize their children to prevent them from diseases like measles, polio, and tetanus. Immunization will protect not only immunized infants from illnesses but also keeps other infants safe from dangerous condition historically known to spread among the infants.