URBAN SLUMS AND CHILDREN’S HEALTH IN LESS-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, 2012.
Andrew K Jorgenson, James Rice
We utilize first-difference panel regression analysis to assess the direct effect of urban slum prevalence on national level measures of under-5 mortality rates over the period 1990 to 2005. Utilizing data on 80 less developed countries, the results illustrate increasing urban slum prevalence over the period is a robust predictor of increasing child mortality rates. This effect obtains net the statistically significant influence of gross domestic product per capita, fertility rate, and educational enrollment.
Cross-sectional analyses for 2005 that include additional controls provide further evidence of the mortality/urban slum relationship. The results confirm urban slum prevalence growth is an important contextual dynamic whereby the social production of child mortality is enacted in the less developed countries.
