title: Childhood mortality and its association with household wealth in rural and semi-urban Burkina Faso.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study aimed to investigate the relationship between household wealth and under-5 year mortality in rural and semi-urban Burkina Faso.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study included 15 543 children born between 2005 and 2010 in the Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Information on household wealth was collected in 2009. Two separate wealth indicators were calculated by principal components analysis for the rural and the semi-urban households, which were then divided into quintiles accordingly. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to study the effect of the respective wealth measure on under-5 mortality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We observed 1201 childhood deaths, corresponding to 5-year survival probability of 93.6% and 88% in the semi-urban and rural area, respectively. In the semi-urban area, household wealth was significantly related to under-5 mortality after adjustment for confounding. There was a similar but non-significant effect of household wealth on infant mortality, too. There was no effect of household wealth on under-5 mortality in rural children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results from this study indicate that the more privileged children from the semi-urban area with access to piped water and electricity have an advantage in under-5 survival, while under-5 mortality in the rural area is rather homogeneous and still relatively high.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany schoeps@uni-heidelberg.de.
authors.forename: Anja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schoeps
authors.affiliation: Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Aurélia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Souares
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna, Nouna, Burkina Faso Département de Démographie, Université de Montréal, H3T 1N8 Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Niamba
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna, Nouna, Burkina Faso Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), 4051 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Diboulo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Gisela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kynast-Wolf
authors.affiliation: Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Olaf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna, Nouna, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sié
authors.affiliation: Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Heiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Becher
mesh_terms: D002050:Burkina Faso / Q000453:epidemiology; D046688:Child Mortality; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality; D008297:Male; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013383:Suburban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Africa south of the Sahara; Child mortality; Household wealth; Principal components analysis; Rural-urban difference; Social class