Infant and Child Mortality in Eastern Africa : Causes and Differentials - A Review of the Literature

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 and five years. Demographers have for a long time been interested in the study of mortality which is one of the components of population change. Infant and child mortality are 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. This paper reviews the literature of infant and child mortality in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Tanzania, countries, which, for purposes of this discussion, constitute Eastern Africa. In this part of the world, as many as 200 of every a thousand live born infants die before their first birthdays. Apart from Kenya, all the above mentioned countries have infant mortalities ranging between 100 and 200 deaths per thousand live births. Even though infant and child mortality have declined in the region since the 1960's, they are still unquestionably high and have for various reasons stagnated in their decline