Macro Determinants of Geographical Variation in Childhood Survival in South Africa Using Flexible Spatial Mixture Models

Abstract

In many societies around the world, social and economic programmes have been put in place aimed at improving the health of the populations. This is premised on evidence that a healthy population is economically more active; thus contributing to efforts meant to lowering levels of poverty (Romani and Anderson 2002). Leading indicators of overall social-economic development and health status of a country are infant (under 1 year) mortality and under-five mortality rates(Romani and Andersen 2002; Bradshaw et al. 2004; Burgard and Treiman 2006). Under-five mortality rate, defined as the number of children younger than 5 years who die out of 1,000 live births, is a Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4) indicator (United Nations 2012b). Furthermore, in conditions where HIV/AIDS is pandemic, childhood death rates are important for investigating inequalities regarding HIV policies and services; in particular, differential rates of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV (Bradshaw et al. 2004).