International Journal of Statistics and Applications 2017, 7(2): 113-116
DOI: 10.5923/j.statistics.20170702.06
Poisson Regression Model on Infant Mortality
Occurrence and Incidence in the Kumasi District of
Ghana
L. Tetteh-Ahinakwa
*
, F. T. Oduro
Department of Mathematics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Abstract This paper assesses the significance of occurrence and incidence of infant mortality in the Kumasi district, a
suburb of the Ashanti Region of Ghana, from 2008 to 2014 using the poisson regression model. Data was collected from the
Ghana Health Service (GHS) District Office in Kumasi. The poisson regression model was used to determine the
improvement of infant mortality during the years understudy with reference to the year 2014. Results show that the mean
number infant mortality is higher in 2008, 2009 and 2012 compared to 2014 (reference year) for both occurrence and
incidence. Also, the mean occurrence and incidence of infant mortality reduced significantly throughout the study period.
Keywords Poisson loglinear, Infant mortality, Incidence, Occurrence
1. Introduction
Childbirth is the main source of increase in the size of a
family in developing countries. This, in effect, leads to an
increase in the size of a community, society and country at
large. It is really held in high esteem particularly in these
countries where the size of a family or community reflects its
social status. However, this is usually breached by the
occurrence of deaths in infants. Infant mortality is the death
of a child before reaching one year of age per 1,000 live
births in a given year [1]. There are various causes to infant
mortality. Some factors include medical, environmental and
socio-cultural. Common causes are preventable with low
cost measures.
An assessment of the quantitative contribution of mild
(birth at 34-36 gestational weeks) and moderate (birth at
32-33 gestational weeks) preterm birth to infant mortality
showed that mild– and moderate–preterm birth infants are at
high RR for death during infancy and are responsible for an
important fraction of infant deaths [2]. Relative risks (RRs)
and etiologic fractions (EFs) were measured for overall and
cause specific early neonatal (age 0-6 days), late neonatal
(age 7-27 days), post-neonatal (age 28-364 days) and total
infant death among mild and moderate preterm births vs term
births (at ≥37 gestational weeks).
A reviewed article aimed at developing mathematical
models of malaria shows that nearly a million child mortality
* Corresponding author:
lt.ahinakwa@gmail.com (L. Tetteh-Ahinakwa)
Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/statistics
Copyright © 2017 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved
was recorded in about 109 countries declared to be endemic
to malaria and its prevalence is highest in infants and
children. The research emphasised more on the evolution of
the deterministic differential equation based epidemiological
compartment models with a brief discussion on data based
statistical models under the age of 5-years. The Ross model
was used as a basis to develop this model [3].
A proposed mathematical model for the association
between P. falciparum transmission and neonatal death
related neonatal mortality resulting from malaria infection
during pregnancy to the age-specific prevalence of P.
falciparum in the general population [4]. Results showed that
there is no evidence of an association between neonatal
mortality and malaria transmission intensity, yet such an
association is evident for both post-neonatal and overall
infant mortality.
Malaria kills about 1 to 3 million people a year of whom
75% are African children. It presents an ordinary differential
equation mathematical model for the spread of malaria in
human and mosquito populations. A reproductive number,
R
0
, for the number of secondary cases that one infected
individual will cause through the duration of the infectious
period was defined. It was found that the disease-free
equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable when R
0
<1 and
unstable when R
0
>1 [5].
A study to assess the effect of early infant feeding
practices (delayed initiation, prelacteal feeding established
neonatal breastfeeding) on infection-specific neonatal
mortality in breastfed neonates aged 2–28 days. It employed
a prospective observational cohort study based on 10 942
breastfed singleton neonates who were born between 1 July
2003 and 30 June 2004, survived to day 2 and whose mothers