Abstract

Mazen Abuqamar*, Danny Coomans and Fred Louckx

A society's infant mortality rate is considered an important indicator of its health status. Maternal education has been accepted almost unanimously as a major socio-economic factor in infant mortality. In addition, it is one of the few measures of health status for which data are widely available in most countries. Many research studies have been done on this topic, but never in Palestine. This study was carried out in 2008 with the objective of determining the relationship between educational level of parents and infant mortality in the Gaza strip. Face to face interviews were carried out on 550 mothers of infants (275 dead infants and 275 live births) in the Gaza strip. Binary logistic regression analyses were used to identify the relationship between health behavioral factors and infant mortality. The result of this study showed that the families with lower educational level had a much higher risk of infant mortality. There was a positive statistical association between parental education and survival of infants. The findings underscore the importance of explicit attention to health education.