Modeling and Forecasting Under-Five Mortality Rate in Nigeria using Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average Approach

Abstract

Nigeria’s efforts aimed at reducing avoidable child deaths have been met with gradual and sustained progress. Despite the decline in childhood mortality in Nigeria in the last two decades, its prevalence still remain high in comparison to the global standard of mortality for children under the age of five which stands at 25 deaths per 1000 live births. Knowledge of the chances of Nigeria achieving this goal for childhood mortality will aid proper interventions needed to reduce the occurrence. Therefore, this paper employed the Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model for time series analysis to make forecast of under-five mortality in Nigeria up to 2030 using data obtained from the United Nation’s Inter Agency Group for Childhood Mortality Estimate (UN-IGME). The ARIMA (2, 1, 1) model predicted a reduction of up to 37.3% by 2030 at 95% confidence interval. Results from the study also showed that a reduction of over 300% in under-five mortality is required for Nigeria to be able to achieve the SDG goal for under-five mortality.