Model Selection and Inference in Competing Risk Regression Model to Determine the Potential factors of under-5 Child Mortality in Bangladeshin Bangladesh

Abstract

Under-5 child mortality is always a critical term for the developing countries like Bangladesh. The primary objective of this study is to investigate under-5 child mortality using Fine and Gray (1999) competing risk regression. The secondary objective is to decide among many other covariates which covariates should be included in Fine and Gray model and which should not. For this purpose, data are extracted from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2011, where the event of interest, under-5 child mortality may occur due to any of the three causes: Disease, Non-disease and Other. It is found that for “Disease Cause” 4 covariates (wealth index, size of child at birth, gender of child, availability of maternal and child welfare center) are selected. For “Non-disease Cause” 6 covariates (mother's education, place of delivery, size of child at birth, NGO  membership of mother, gender of child, birth order number) are selected and for “Other Cause” 6 covariates(mother's education, availability of MCWC, NGO membership of mother, father's education, birth order number, main access road to village)  are selected. Finally, for the selected covariates, the Fine and Gary competing risk regression models are fitted to identify the potential factors of under-5 child mortality due to the three different causes of deaths. The identified factors may help to take decision by the health policy makers to increase under-5 child survival in Bangladesh.