Child Mortality Inequalities and Linkage with Sanitation Facilities in Bangladesh

• Published in: Journal of health, population and nutrition Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 64 - 73
• Main Authors: Halder, Amal K, Kabir, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bangladesh ICDDR,B: Centre for Health and Population Research 01.03.2008; BioMed Central Ltd; BioMed Central; International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
• Subjects: Assets; Bangladesh; Child Mortality; Child, Preschool; Children; Concentration index; Death; Demographic aspects; Female; Health; Health aspects; Health equity; Health Surveys; Healthcare Disparities; Households; Humans; Hygiene; Inequalities; Inequality; Infant; Infant Mortality; Infant, Newborn; Infants; Life tables; Male; Mortality; Neonatal care; Neonatal mortality; Original Papers; Poverty; Principal Component Analysis; Principal components analysis; Public health; Risk factors; Sanitation; Sanitation - standards; Sanitation - statistics & numerical data; Sanitation, Household; Social Class; Social status; Socioeconomic Factors; Socioeconomic status; Socioeconomics; Wealth; Bangladesh
• ISSN: 1606-0997; 2072-1315

Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to assets and other household data, collected as part of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) in 2004, to rank individuals according to a household socioeconomic index and to investigate whether this predicts access to the sanitation system or outcomes. PCA was used for determining wealth indices for 11,440 women in 10,500 households in Bangladesh. The index was based on the presence or absence of items from a list of 13 specific household assets and three housing characteristics. PCA revealed 35 components, of which the first component accounted for 18% of the total variance. Ownership of assets and housing features contributed almost equally to the variance in the first component. In this study, ownership of latrines was examined as an example of sanitation-intervention access, and rates of mortality of neonates, infant, and children aged less than five years (under-five mortality) as examples of health outcomes. The analysis demonstrated significant gradients in both access and outcome measures across the wealth quintiles. The findings call for more attention to approaches for reducing health inequalities. These could include reforms in the health sector to provide more equitable allocation of resources, improvement in the quality of health services offered to the poor, and redesigning interventions and their delivery to ensure that they are more pro-poor.