Abstract:
Under-five mortality is a leading indicator of child health and overall development. The underfive mortality rate is the probability of a child born in a specified year dying before reaching
the age of five. The aim of this study was to investigate the determinants and regional
differences in under-five mortality in Ethiopia. The data for this study were obtained from the
EDHS 2016, which was a nationally representative survey of children in the age group 0-5
years, and multi-level count regression analysis was used to analyze the data. 42.7% of the
mothers have faced any at least one under five child death (U5CD) in their lifetime and 1.8%
of them experienced at least five U5CD. The findings revealed that toilet facility, birth order,
place of delivery, place of residence, source of drinking water, family size and sex of the
household head were predictors of under-five mortality. The incidence rates are high in
Amhara, Dire Dawa and SNNP, while lower rates are estimated in Addis Ababa, Harari and
Oromia. The government and other concerned bodies should focus on the realization of access
to safe water for all households and the community as a whole in Ethiopia, in order to
minimize the under-five child mortality. Toilet facility plays an important role in child
survival. The multilevel analysis further showed that there were substantial under-five death
variations per mother among regions in Ethiopia, and were significant (random intercept
variance = 2 = 0.313, P- value <0.001).
