The DHS Program

An Analysis of Infant Mortality in the 2013 and 2019-20 Liberia Demographic and Health Surveys (English) 

Document Type

Further Analysis

Publication Topic(s)

Infant and Child Mortality

Country(s)

Liberia

Survey

Liberia DHS, 2019-20

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Pullum, Thomas W. 2022. An Analysis of Infant Mortality in the 2013 and 2019–20 Liberia Demographic and Health Surveys. DHS Further Analysis Reports No. 142. Rockville, Maryland, USA: ICF.

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Publication Date

March 2022

Publication ID

FA142

Abstract:

The final report on the 2019–20 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey (LDHS) included unexpected findings related to recent under-5 mortality. The under-5 mortality rate almost exactly matched the 2013 LDHS rate, but the rates for perinatal mortality, neonatal mortality, and infant mortality appeared to have increased, despite improvements in antenatal care (ANC), place of birth, and other characteristics that generally affect child survival. This report focuses on the components and determinants of early mortality to better understand the Liberia data. When sampling error is taken into account, there is little evidence of either increases or declines in the sub-intervals of the first year of age. Many possible changes related to covariates are investigated, including for the regions and counties of Libera, but few differences or changes are significant. We find evidence of over- reporting of deaths on day 0, the day of birth; all the rates that include day 0, including the perinatal rate, were spuriously inflated. We are unable to determine conclusively whether the inflation on day 0 was due to errors in reporting births, reporting deaths, or reporting age at death.