Death clustering is inherently implied in the survival status of preceding children, that is, the survival of subsequent children in the family depends on whether the family has previously experienced the death of a child. [...] The effects of survival status of the previous child have been explained through the truncation of the interval to the subsequent birth, which is in turn associated with the maternal depletion syndrome that can lead to preterm and low birthweight births and pregnancy complications. [...] The results of our models largely correspond to the pattern of relationships between the risk of child death and the familial covariates observed in previous studies. [...] In order to capture the effect of the survival status of the previous-but-one sibling and to confirm positively that there is death clustering, would require one to estimate the second order Markov model or as many orders as the pairs of siblings in the data. [...] As the results suggest the lag effect is likely to diminish the farther back we move from a particular index child (Zenger, 1993), because the mechanisms through which the survival status of the previous child affects the survival of other children are stronger for children who immediately follow each other For example, the effect of death of the first order birth on the death of the fourth order.
- Pages
- 40
- Published in
- Canada
