Socio-economic inequalities in adult mortality among the different geopolitical zones in Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Increased longevity is the desire of every individual and no one will rationally ignore minimizing the risk of untimely death  in spite of numerous challenges in daily life. Mortality numbers are an interesting source of information on the national health because  they are objective figures that can provide a broad image of the health situation of groups of interest. Hence, this paper examines the  size and pattern of socio-economic inequalities in adult mortality across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria using 2008 NDHS datasets.

Methods: Mortality was calculated based on the sibling mortality reports of the respondents. In total, the estimates are based on  mortality histories of 48,871 individuals covered in the survey. Mortality levels are measured with household’s socio-economic status in  each zone, that is, the degree to which adult mortality is more unequally distributed among different wealth quintiles in the six  geopolitical zones in the country.

Results: Analysis reveals that in all the observed zones, relative inequalities became larger, implying  that the existing burden of mortality became more unequally distributed across socioeconomic groups. Socioeconomic inequalities in  mortality size were relatively large among the northern zones compared to their southern counterparts. These variations are not  surprising since the three southern zones are more urbanised with higher literacy rate and greater proportions of their populations are  in the higher wealth quintiles than the northern zones. Variations in the relationship is also linked to behavioural risk factors like smoking, alcoholism and an unhealthy diet are more common among those in higher socioeconomic quintiles in southern zones than  among those in lower quintiles.

Conclusion: Family ties are generally very close which to some extent cushions the adverse effects of low socioeconomic status and may have contributed to the relatively small mortality inequalities in the south. There is the need to reduce the  socioeconomic inequality so as to increase adult healthy years of life in Nigeria to specifically curb the five leading causes of death (HIV/ AIDS, lower respiratory tract infections, malaria, measles and perinatal conditions). One way will be to replicate the relative success story  of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) among the public servant of the federal government in the states as well as the highly  populated informal sector.