International Journal of Child Health and Nutrition, 2013, 2, 359-366 359 E-ISSN: 1929-4247/13 © 2013 Lifescience Global The Child Health Scenario in India: An Application of Bayesian Approach Atanu Bhattacharjee 1,* , Dilip C. Nath 2 and Dibyojyoti Bhattacharjee 3 1 Division of Biostatistics and Clinical Research, Department of Cancer Registry, Malabar Cancer Centre, Kerala, India 2 Department of Statistics, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India 3 Department of Business Administration, Assam University, Silchar, Assam, India Abstract: Background: The child mortality rate of a place is an indication of the basic health facility prevalent there. A place with better medical facility records low child mortality. The child mortality rate reduction is not as expected in many developing countries. In last two decades the child death rate has not been reduced significantly in India. The aim of this work is to explore the child death rate in different Indian states. Materials and Methods: The Bayesian approach has been applied to control the over dispersion due to presence of zero (i.e. no-death count) in the data set. The Zero Inflated Poisson (ZIP) has been applied to control the presence of over the Zero Inflation Distribution. The data set has been considered from Indian National Health and Family Survey (NFHS-3) conducted during 2005-2006. The women having at least one living child of age less than five years has been selected as study subjects. Results: The state of Goa has attained the best position recording the lowest child death rate (0.03) and followed by Kerala (0.08). The Arunachal Pradesh (0.75) has attained the last rank among all states in India. In case of child death for women who have at least one living male children Tamilnadu has the lowest child death. Conclusion: In India it has been observed that married couples accept family planning only after having sufficient number of children. This is mainly because as the child mortality rate is higher so only few of their children would survive to adulthood. Reduction in infant mortality over time and the awareness of such improvements among the people in the community may ultimately lead to lesser number of children per couple due to the removal of the fear of death to their children. It is, therefore, necessary, from the policy point of view, to estimate the actual levels of child mortality of an area under study at different period of time. Attempt shall also be made to explore the extent of changes in the levels of child mortality and its causes over time. Keywords: NFHS 3, Infant Mortality, Child Mortality, Public Health. BACKGROUND Infant mortality refers to the death of a child born alive before its first birthday and child mortality is the death of a child aged between one to five years [1]. The declining trends in infant and child mortality in several developing countries like Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, India is attributed to the introduction of medical technology and corresponding socio economic development [2]. Demographers have for a long time been interested in the study of mortality which is one of the components of population change. The rapid growth of public health and medical services coupled with some improvement in socio-economic condition did result in some decline in overall mortality in the country, though the level of mortality in India is still higher than even some of the developing countries. The high level of mortality in India is because of its high infant mortality [3]. The infant and child mortality are *Address correspondence to this author at the Division of Biostatistics and Clinical Research, Department of Cancer Registry, Malabar Cancer Centre, Kerala, India; Tel: 0490-2355881; Fax: 0490-2355880; E-mail: atanustat@gmail.com among the best indicators of socio-economic development because a society's life expectancy at birth is determined by the survival chances of infants and children [1]. In the Indian context, the safe delivery of a healthy child and survival of both mother and child cannot be taken for granted [4]. Survival of the child and mother is an indicator of the health of the medical system. It is a reflection of the country’s normative framework, its institutional framework, its power balances and priorities. Death rates in India are considerably higher as compared with those of developed countries, even much higher than some developing ones. In order to reduce the overall death rates, more emphasis is needed on the reduction of infant and child mortality. It is known that the deaths of children before their fifth birthday account for 47% of all deaths and almost one third of all deaths are those of infants before their first birthday [5]. It is to be pointed that the reduction of infant and child mortality is one of the necessary pre-conditions for acceptance of the idea of a small family, particularly in societies which for many reasons continue to attach major importance to male offspring and their survival to parents’ old age [6].