Analyzing Child Mortality in Nigeria with Geoadditive Survival Models

Adebayo, Samson B. and Fahrmeir, Ludwig (2002): Analyzing Child Mortality in Nigeria with Geoadditive Survival Models. Collaborative Research Center 386, Discussion Paper 303

Abstract

Child mortality reflects a country's level of socio-economic development and quality of life. In developing countries, mortality rates are not only influenced by socio-economic, demographic and health variables but they also vary considerably across regions and districts. In this paper, we analyze child mortality in Nigeria with flexible geoadditive survival models. This class of models allows to measure small-area district-specific spatial effects simultaneously with possibly nonlinear or time-varying effects of other factors. Inference is fully Bayesian and uses recent Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation. The application is based on the 1999 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. Our method assesses effects at a high level of temporal and spatial resolution not available with traditional parametric models.

• Item Type: Paper
• Faculties: Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics > Statistics > Collaborative Research Center 386; Special Research Fields > Special Research Field 386
• Subjects: 500 Science > 510 Mathematics
• Language: English