Decline of infant and child mortality in the Dominican Republic: an exploratory investigation on changes in the structure and composition of socio-demographic determinants during the mortality transition
Caceres Urena, F.I.; Mccracken, S.D.
Poblacion y Desarrollo 3: 125-150
1993
PMID: 12178317 Document Number: 234343
Results of the Dominican Republic's four most important fertility surveys were used to analyze how relations between selected sociodemographic factors and infant mortality have changed in recent decades, and to evaluate the contribution of changes in the distribution of these factors to mortality decline. The empirical analysis was carried out in four parts, the first of which analyzed trends in infant mortality in the Dominican Republic between 1960 and 1990. The second part established the importance of each determinant in each period studied and used logistic regression to analyze changes in the structure of the relationship between the variables and infant mortality. The third section analyzed changes in the relative weight of the categories of determinants during the study period. The final section standardized the risk of death in 1964-69 using the composition of births in 1985-90 and vice versa to evaluate the influence of each determinant in the infant mortality decline. The number of study variables was limited to six by lack of comparability in the four fertility surveys. The six variables were region and zone of residence, education and age of the mother, and birth order and interval. The results of this research did not indicate any clear pattern of change in the structure of relations between determinants and infant mortality. It appears plausible that there are various routes toward the transition leading to low mortality. In the Dominican Republic, maternal education was most important from 1964 to 1969, when infant mortality was high, and became relatively less important as a determinant in subsequent years. The changing relationship between maternal education and infant mortality suggests that there are no generalized patterns but rather the weight of each variable differs from one context to another and depends on the influence of other socioeconomic, medical, and demographic determinants.