Determinants of Early Childhood Mortality in Kenya – Evidence from 2022 KDHS

Abstract

Child mortality rates in Kenya have declined significantly, but progress has slowed down in the recent past, and the country is likely to miss the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for newborn and under-five mortality. The objective of this study is to explore factors that are currently influencing early childhood mortality in Kenya, to inform the design and targeting of effective intervention strategies to accelerate mortality decline. The study is guided by the Mosley and Chen (1984) framework for child survival. It employs chi-square tests to assess associations and logistic regression analysis to identify the determinants of child mortality. From the analysis, the key determinants of early childhood mortality in Kenya are maternal education, timing of antenatal care (ANC) visits, breastfeeding, weight of child at birth, attitudes and use of family planning, age of mother at birth, and multiple births (p-value<0.05). The factors contributing to elevated early childhood mortality are uptake of ANC of fewer than four ANC visits, which affects 37.6% of children, not using family planning (38%), extreme maternal age at 15%, low birth weight, which affects 13% of children. Other factors are delivering at home, 19%, and having a birth interval of less than 24 months, which affects 34% of children. To accelerate the decline in early childhood mortality, Kenya should improve prenatal services, intensify family planning and expand maternal education.