Causes of infant mortality in Jordan

Jordan lacks accurate information on mortality and related indicators. Reporting of infant deaths is defective. Infant mortality rate based on registered deaths was 6/1000 live births, while estimates of this rate based on indirect methods varied between 29-70/1000 live births. Causes of death in general are grossly misrepresented in death certificates. The objective of this paper is to explore, in-depth, causes of infant mortality and related indicators.

An assessment of causes of death by verbal autopsy was carried out at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan. This was applied between November 1995 through to October 1996, to a random sample of 200,000 persons living in 100 clusters representing the population and all geographic areas of Jordan. The verbal autopsy instrument was based on algorithms and filter questions to determine the underlying cause of death. In this sample there were 6028 infants among them 129 deaths were identified. Infant deaths were analyzed according to rates and causes of death were classified according to International Classification of Diseases (10th revision).

Age-specific death rate was 21.4/1000 infants and gender specific death rates were 22.6/1000 male infants for males and 20.1/1000 female infants for females. The 3 leading causes of infant death were conditions originating in the perinatal period, congenital malformations and diseases of the respiratory system. The leading cause of death in the neonatal period was conditions originating in the perinatal period, while in the post-neonatal period, it was congenital malformations. Prematurity was the leading contributory cause of infant death.

This study showed that causes of infant mortality in Jordan tend to be similar to those prevailing in developed countries.