Child Mortality Rate and Its Causes in Rural Areas of Ardabil Province With Emphasis on Pars Abad City

Death component as one of the most important variables of population change has long been studied by different researchers. Infant mortality rate as a scale of health development in a country has effects in life expectancy. This work reports the effects of health related factors and other potentially important variable on child mortality rates.

Our research field of study is the rural areas of Parsabad city located in the north west of Ardebil province. We studied 235 children under 5 years old death records in Parsabad health centers using a separate questionnaire as well as the interview with their parents. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Survey results shows that the pattern of child death rate in rural area is not similar to that of reported for other rural areas of country. CDR in Parsabad was higher than average value for Iran's rural area. We have observed higher mortality rates among female infants than males. Literacy of mothers conversely related to CDR and it was also higher in consangvineous marriage. CDR was increased with increasing the number of childbirth. 60% of deaths occurred in infants and 23% in children with 1 to11 months of age and the remaining 17% belonged to 1-59 months.

Our results show that an appropriate cultural plan should be applied to eliminate sex discrimination and investigate causes of congenital abnormalities