HUMAN-DEVELOPMENT INDEX AS A PREDICTOR OF INFANT AND MATERNAL MORTALITY-RATES

Objective: The United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) is a compo site index of life expectancy, literacy, and per capita gross domestic product that measures the socioeconomic development of a country. We estimated infant and maternal mortality rates in the world and assesse d how well the HDI and its individual components predicted infant and maternal mortality rates for individual countries. Materials: Data on mortality rates and values for HDI components were obtained from the U nited Nations and the World Bank. Results: For the 1987 to 1990 period , approximately 9 million infant deaths and 349, 000 maternal deaths o ccurred in the world annually, yielding global infant and maternal mor tality rates of 67 per 1000 and 250 per 100,000 live births, respectiv ely. HDI is a powerful predictor of both infant and maternal mortality rates. It accounts for 85% to 92% of the variation in infant mortalit y rates, and 82% to 85% of the variation in maternal mortality rates a mong countries. Each component of HDI is also strongly correlated with both infant and maternal mortality rates (significance of all values for r, p < 0.001), and eliminating life expectancy from HDI does not d ecrease significantly the predictive power of HDI for infant or matern al mortality rates. Conclusion: HDI is not only a useful measure for s ocioeconomic development, but also a powerful predictor of infant and maternal mortality rates for individual countries.