Childhood Mortality in Egypt, Eritrea, and Uganda: A Multilevel, Multiprocess Model with Unobserved Heterogeneity

Gebrenegus Ghilagaber, Stockholm University

This paper addresses the relationship between childhood mortality on one hand, and use of health care and other socioeconomic variables on the other, in three African countries - Egypt, Eritrea, and Uganda - based on data from the 1995 Demographic and Health Surveys in respective countries. Children of the same mother are treated as correlated cases (levels) of the same observation (mother) and we allow for unobserved heterogeneity between mothers. Multilevel, multiprocess approaches are then used to simultaneously model mortality risks and the propensity to use health care. In some of the countries studied it is shown that while use of health care reduces mortality risks such beneficial effect may be underestimated if selection effects (due to more frail users of health care) is not accounted for. In others, the effect of health care is overestimated when selection effects (due to less frail users of health care) is not accounted for.