From outlays to outcomes: effective interventions in health sector (looking at specific regions in India); reduction of infant mortality in EAG states
Student name: Ms Anjana Rajagopalan
Guide: Dr Papiya Guha Mazumdar
Year of completion: 2012
Host Organisation: TERI University
Abstract: Reduction of Infant Mortality is an important Millennium Development Goal. India lags
behind various countries in the goal of infant mortality reduction. This is due to the high
Infant Mortality rates in the EAG states, consisting of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, and Chattisgarh. Despite various policies
and programmes implemented by the state governments to reduce infant mortality, infant
mortality levels in EAG states remain very high.
A vast literature examines the causes of infant mortality exists, looking at number of infants
that died and possible explanatory factors such as mother’s education, total fertility, etc. This
paper looks at factors influencing adverse pregnancy outcomes, including still births and
spontaneous abortions along with infant deaths, especially in EAG states of India. The unit of
consideration is mothers who have experienced any adverse pregnancy outcomes. The
argument is that policies targeted at reducing adverse pregnancy outcomes in general will
also lead to reduction of infant mortality. The main focus is given on increasing birth spacing
as a possible solution to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes. For this purpose, data has
been taken from the District Level Household Survey-3, 2007-08.
This paper uses a Poisson count model which is relatively new and is compared with a
logistic regression to estimate the relative significance of various factors which need to be
targeted so as to achieve the goal of better health outcomes in terms of child survival. The
important factors that turn out to be significant are total number of pregnancies, birth
spacing and son preference.
