Sociodemographic differentials of adult death in a rural population

Mortality rates in this country are very high, but most of the deaths occur unattended by a health worker and hence pass unrecorded. As a result, there is a critical lack of information to make sound judgement on what kind of interventions are needed to reduce the high toll of death. This case-control study was conducted in the Meskan and Mareko District, in the ten kebeles that are under continuous demographic surveillance by the Butajira Rural Health Program (BRHP). Included in the study were 515 cases, of which 49.3% were females and 50.7% were males, and 785 controls, of which 52.1% were females and 47.9% males. The most important sociodemographic factors that were found to influence adult death were single marital status (OR 1.63; 95% CI: 1.13, 2.35), having no educated person in the family (OR 1.91; 95% CI 1.11, 3.29), not having gainful occupation (OR 1.40; 95% CI 1.01, 1.82), and perceived poor and very poor economic status (OR 1.97; 95% CI 1.31, 2.94 and OR 2.98, 95% CI 1.73, 5.13, respectively). The male sex (OR 1.46; 95% CI 1.09, 1.95) and living in the rural lowlands (OR 1.54; 95% CI 1.03, 2.31) are also significantly associated with adult mortality. This study revealed that many of the factors associated with adult mortality are related to poor socio-economic conditions and to the prevailing under development of the rural areas.