Seasonality of Pneumonia Mortality among Infant Children in India: A Joinpoint Analysis

Rishabh Kumar, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Nandita Saikia, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Although there have been significant decreases over the past decade, pneumonia continue to be the primary reasons for child mortality in India, resulting in approximately 190,000 deaths in children aged 1 to 59 months in 2015. Our study focuses on examining trends of seasonal fluctuations of pneumonia mortality among infants from 2018 to 2020 in India and its major states. Our analysis is based on HMIS dataset. The infant mortality rates are calculated by dividing the total number of deaths in each population group by total number of births in India. Joinpoint regression method is applied in our analysis. At national level, it is seen from the trends of mortality rates that during the winter season in India i.e., from October to February, there is peak in mortality rates, and during April, the mortality rates begin to decline and again begin to rise in August. The results from the joinpoint analysis at national level in India, shows one joinpoint in each year from 2018 to 2020. For year 2018, the rate of change of mortality is 2.04% (AMPC -2.04 (CI -3.96, -0.02)) with an 7.23% monthly drop from January to June and 2.49 % monthly rise from June to December.

Keywords: Mortality and Longevity, Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, Health and Morbidity, Mathematical demography

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