Intra-urban variations of neonatal and post-neonatal mortality in a developing city

Michael R. Rip, Cecil S. Keen and David L. Woods

Social Science & Medicine, 1987, vol. 25, issue 8, 889-894

Abstract: Numerous surveys at the national and regional level have demonstrated that large inequalities in infant health status exist in Southern Africa. Few studies have assessed infant mortality at the intra-urban scale of geographic analysis. Comparisons between infant mortality rates from different areas are made even more meaningful if the data are divided into two primary categories based on period-of-death; these being the neonatal and post-neonatal components. This study presents the results of a survey undertaken in Metropolitan Cape Town (population 1.6 million) during 1982. The aim was to determine the spatial variation of neonatal and post-neonatal mortality at the suburb (or community) level within the city. Overall, a total of 36,789 live births and 928 infant deaths were recorded; 53.4% in the neonatal period and 46.6% in the post-neonatal period. The mean infant mortality rate was 25.2 per 1000 live births; the neonatal mortality rate and post-neonatal mortality rate being 13.5/1000 and 11.7/1000, respectively. A marked range in death rates was evident for both components. For the neonatal category it was 0.0-49.9/1000 and 0.0-40.0/1000 for the post-neonatal period. The generally low post-neonatal mortality rate among the 69 suburbs studied has made the neonatal component the dominant contributor to the infant mortality rate. However, in the lowest socio-economic areas the post-neonatal mortality rate was responsible for over 60% of infant deaths. The results from this study clearly support the assumption of an inverse relationship between socio-economic status and infant death rates, particularly for the most socially deprived areas where the post-neonatal mortality rates were four to five times higher than compared with higher socio-economic suburbs. Spatial analysis found that variations in infant mortality rates were significantly correlated with variations in the distribution of socio-economic status.

Keywords: neonatal; mortality; post-neonatal; mortality; infant; mortality; spatial; epidemiology; socio-economic; status; intra-urban; variation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(87)90258-9
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:25:y:1987:i:8:p:889-894

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().