Social Determinants of Infant Mortality in Malaysia Volume 2 - Issue 4

A Amaluddin¹* and N Spencer²

• ¹Asia Metropolitan University, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
• ²Warwick Medical School, The University of Warwick, UK

Received: November 13, 2020   Published: February 22, 2021

Corresponding author: Amaluddin, Asia Metropolitan University, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

DOI: 10.32474/JCCM.2021.02.000148

 

Fulltext PDF

To view the Full Article   Peer-reviewed Article PDF

Abstract

There is a large body of empirical evidence to suggest that social conditions are one of the major determinants of population health. These are defined as the ‘Social Determinants of Health (SDH)’. SDH refers to the specific pathways by which social forces affect health. This study aims to examine the relationship between social determinants and infant mortality in Malaysia. The methodology comprises of an ecological (area-based) population health survey involving all 135 administrative districts of Malaysia. Statistical analysis using general linear model including correlations, factor analysis and multiple regression were undertaken in order to examine the influence of determinants on variations observed in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR). Simple regression revealed significant relation between IMR with fifteen predictors, but multiple regressions failed because of multicollinearity among variables. Factor analysis was done to identify similar items. With the new group of variables, economic development explained 27%, socioeconomic status explained 21%, income inequality explained 14%, service provision 9% and finally type of housing explained 4% of the variability observed in IMR. . One unit increase in living standard would reduce IMR by 1.6 while a unit increase in income distribution would increase IMR by 0.9. In conclusion, developing a better understanding of the social determinants of IMR is critical in order to ameliorate the social determinants associated with poor health and to reduce the health disparities within the population.

Abstract| Introduction| Materials and Methods| Results| Discussion| Conclusions| Recommendations| Limitations of the Study| References|