Determining the lx and estimating the force of mortality for children under five in Bangladesh
Background: Under-five mortality is a health indicator in population health and the health sciences. Force of death is a more accurate measure of mortality than others, which indicates the situation of mortality when time tends to zero. The purpose of this research is to construct a simulation for lx (the number of people living at exact age x) for under-five mortality in Bangladesh as a whole, and separately for rural and urban areas, and then estimating the mortality rate in regard to these matched models. Methods: Secondary data were collected from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2007. A polynomial model was selected to match the lx values. To prove the accuracy of the model, the rule of cross-validity was applied. Results: It has been shown that fourth degree polynomial models can be adjusted to lx values with explanation of more than 94% variation. It was noted that the mortality rate shows a rapidly decreasing pattern for people aged 0-20 months, a monotonically increasing pattern for those aged 20-53.5 months and then it begins to decrease. It is found that the mortality rate in rural areas is higher than in urban areas of all ages. Conclusions: It has been shown that the mortality rate in rural areas is higher than for urban areas of all ages, except for those aged 53.5 months. The health situation should therefore be improved to reduce mortality in rural Bangladesh.