Household income and under five child mortality in Uganda (1983 – 2021)

Abstract

Objective: To study the effect of household income on under-five child mortality in Uganda between 1983 and 2021. Design: A systematic literature search of studies that examined the effect of household income and under-five child mortality using the framework of child survival analysis developed by Mosley and Chen (1984) in different developing countries. To attain sustainable development goals, reduction in child mortality is necessary. However, a major challenge exists in the procurement of healthcare services by individuals which is determined to a large extent by their level of income. There is abundant evidence that children in low-income households do less well than their peers on a range of developmental outcomes. However, there is continuing uncertainty about how far income matters, and how far associations simply reflect other, unobserved, differences between richer and poorer families. A systematic review of studies using methods that lend themselves to causal interpretation for example; diagnostic tests such as multicollinearity and normality tests, unit root testing such as augmented dicker fuller and Phillips Perron test, descriptive statistics for central tendencies and pairwise correlation all scrutinized under the auto regressive distribute lag model using panel data obtained form the world bank indicators for the specified periods. The results lend strong support to the hypothesis that household income has a positive causal effect on under five child mortality, including their cognitive and social-behavioral development and their health. There is also clear evidence of a positive causal effect of ‘proximate factors’ that are important for under-five child mortality, including maternal mental health, economic factors, biological factors and the environment. Lastly, the government is urged to spend well above the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended benchmark of 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on health in order to improve the health infrastructure in terms of standard hospitals henceforth reducing under five child mortality rate across the country.