Early Neonatal Mortality and Determinants in Sub-Saharan Africa: Findings from Recent Demographic and Health Survey Data

Introduction: Neonatal mortality during the first week of life is a global issue that is responsible for a large portion of deaths among children under the age of five. There are, however, very few reports about the issue in sub-Saharan Africa. For the sake of developing appropriate policies and initiatives that could aid in addressing the issue, it is important to study the prevalence of mortality during the early neonatal period and associated factors. Thus, the aim of this study was to ascertain the prevalence of and pinpoint the contributing factors to early neonatal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.

Method: Data from recent demographic and health surveys in sub-Saharan African countries was used for this study. The study included 262,763 live births in total. The determinants of early newborn mortality were identified using a multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression model. To determine the strength and significance of the association between outcome and explanatory variables, the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) at a 95% confidence interval (CI) was computed. Independent variables were deemed statistically significant when the p-value was less than the significance level (0.05).

Result: Early neonatal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa was 22.94 deaths per 1,000 live births. It was found to be significantly associated with maternal age over 35 years (AOR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.34-2.33), low birth weight (AOR = 3.27, 95% CI: 2.16, 4.94), less than four ANC visits (AOR = 1.12, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.33), delivery with caesarean section (AOR = 1.81, 95% CI: 1.30-2.5), not having any complications during pregnancy (AOR = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.61, 94), and community poverty (AOR = 1.32, 95% CI: 1.05-1.65).

Conclusion: This study found that about twenty-three neonates out of one thousand live births died within the first week of life in sub-Saharan Africa. The age of mothers, birth weight, antenatal care service utilization, mode of delivery, multiple pregnancy, complications during pregnancy, and community poverty should be considered while designing policies and strategies targeting early neonatal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.