STATIN survey suggests child mortality on the rise
A survey of the condition of Jamaican women and children conducted two years ago suggests that the child mortality rate has increased in recent years, with 26 children out of 1,000 likely to die before their first birthday.
The survey, carried out by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) with support from United Nations agencies, also indicates that 31 children out of 1,000 are likely to die before age five.
According to the 2005 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) Report, launched in Kingston on Friday, “these estimates of child mortality are higher than earlier estimates and highlight the need for further research”.
The report, which involved interviews in 4,767 households, including 3,647 women and 1,427 children under age five, said “infant and under-five mortality rates were lowest in the rural areas and highest in other towns”.
Other towns refers to urban areas outside the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA).
Research consultant Kristin Fox, who presented the report, said a survey in 1993 showed infant mortality in Jamaica at 24, but noted that the methodology for conducting this survey was different. She said the survey showed infant mortality as higher among children of women with less education.
Children’s advocate Mary Clarke cautioned that other studies on child mortality had shown figures as low as 19 deaths per 1,000. She suggested that perhaps the higher figures could be explained by the methodology used in the survey.
But Fox countered that indications are that there had been an increase, regardless of the methodology employed.
The report also revealed that eight per cent of children were subjected to severe physical punishment from their mothers or caretakers in an effort to discipline them. It also noted that male children (10 per cent) were more likely to be subjected to severe physical punishment than female children (five per cent).
Severe physical punishment was described as the child being “hit or slapped on the face, head or ears and/or beaten with an instrument over and over as hard as one could”.
The report is being conducted in over 50 countries worldwide, and for the second time in five years in Jamaica.
Fox noted that the survey was conducted using rigorous processes, including detailed training of the interviewers.Hughes calls for respect for research data
She noted that the interviewers encountered certain problems such as bad weather, violence and the refusal of middle-class persons in gated communities to take part in the survey.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Dr Wesley Hughes, commended STATIN for producing high-quality work with limited resources. He urged policy makers, and the public and private sectors to make use of such reports, and not to reject the statistics when it suits them to do so.
“I have been hearing people making up their own numbers. I have heard a rejection of some of the official statistics, unbelievably in very important places,” Dr Hughes said.
“(People are saying) the unemployment figure is wrong, the population number is wrong, the CPI (consumer price index) is wrong.”
Dr Hughes said a rejection of the official figures by the society would mean that resources are being wasted by producing these reports, and the staff who work under pressure to produce them would become demoralised.