Big gap separates urban, rural Karnataka in infant, neonatal mortality

Karnataka has reduced its infant and neonatal mortality rates as per data from the Sample Registration System (SRS) survey of 2020, released on September 23. However, the data also shows huge disparity in the urban and rural numbers.

For example, the state has reduced its neonatal mortality rate to 14 (per 1,000 live births) in 2020, compared to 16 in 2019. But this advantage is coming mostly from urban areas.

In urban areas, the neonatal mortality rate is eight, whereas this number more than doubles in rural areas (18).

Neonatal deaths - that is, the death of children aged less than 29 days - form a large proportion of the total infant deaths across India, including Karnataka.

But compared to other states, rural Karnataka has the highest proportion of neonatal deaths (85%), out of the total infant deaths.

In urban Karnataka, neonates make up only 50% of the overall infant deaths.

Even within the neonatal category, the death of children aged less than seven days (early neonatal deaths) is much higher in rural Karnataka compared to urban areas - 13 vs six.

Similarly, the death rate among children aged 0-4 years is 5 for the entire state - but it is 5.7 in rural Karnataka, and 3.9 in urban Karnataka. This trend persists in other categories of infant mortality, too.

Public health researcher Prasanna Saligram says this is in line with past trends in the state.

“Rural areas here would largely mean North Karnataka, where historically health systems, as well as social indicators, have been weak. Infant mortality rate, for example, is strongly correlated with the education levels of the mother, nutrition levels, etc. Since such conditions have not improved, the mortality rates aren’t improving.”

Though Karnataka’s infant mortality rates have improved this year, Saligram says this, too, is in line with the trends in the last 12 years or so.

Despite the annual improvement, the state remains in the middle in terms of national rankings.