SEASONAL VARIATIONS OF INFANT MORTALITY FOR MAIN DEATH CAUSES IN JAMMU DIVISION, J8K, INDIA

Abstract

Mortality's seasonal variation has been described all over the world for many death causes. Periodic changes in the weather conditions of temperate countries have been the well recognized risk factors for seasonal mortality but there is no sufficient evidence for this in tropical countries where seasons are not well defined. The aim of this paper is to describe the seasonality of different death causes of infant mortality by using a simple and replicable method. The presence of seasonal variation in several causes of infant mortality was explored with the help of box and whiskers plots. Death causes were selected according to their relevance and data obtained from District hospitals, sub-district hospitals and JMC, Jammu Division, J8K, India for the period January, 2013 to December, 2018. A total of 4700 infant deaths registered during the study period in Jammu Division, J 8 K out of which 30.3% deaths occurred due to preterm and low birth weight, followed by birth defects (25.3%), SIDS (15.2%), pneumonia (10.1%) and so on. It was observed that there was no significant difference between gender and cause of deaths i.e. gender had no effect on the cause of deaths among infants. Monthly infant deaths showed different median values for different causes. In this study, seasonal variation in infant mortality for several death causes was highlighted to quickly ascertain the presence of seasonality due to different causes which can be very attractive and useful to keep a check on infant mortality in undeveloped countries.