A statistical outlook on factors affecting the infant mortality in South Asia

5^th International Conference on Biometrics & Biostatistics

October 20-21, 2016 Houston, USA

Amal Krishna Dey

Senior Freelance Journalist, India

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Biom Biostat

Abstract :

The success of the lowering infant mortality rate has been a matter of controversy. A common view is that the lowering infant mortality has been a success in some comparatively economically sound areas, but not in the economically weaker areas. The question however needs to be examined statistically with a trend analysis of different regions of South Asia, namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This paper takes a fresh look at the discussion on the rates of changes of infant mortality rates in the light of the data which has become available up to the end of the year 2015. The trend analysis is carried out mainly with the two types regression based curves ---viz. the exponential and Gompertz and goodness fit of these two trend fitting exercise has been statistically established by the DW (Durbin-Watson) statistic. The exponential, which may be written as Yt*=abt and the equation for the Gompertz curve as Yt*=Kabt which may be put in logarithmic form log Yt*=log K+(log a)bt. A correlation matrix also constructed to study the effects of female literacy, GDP rates, states� expenditure on health and family planning etc. The findings of this study are that, the so-called country with better economy notwithstanding, there has been a tendency towards a slowing down of the rate of percentage changes in the infant mortality in the regions with the better economy, whereas the regions with comparative lower economy has shown better results than the regions with better economy in controlling the growth of infant mortality rate and of course, the female literacy rate has a greater say in lowering the infant mortality rate.

Biography :

Email: amalkdey@gmail.com