Impact of health infrastructure on under-five child mortality rates in Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the impact of health infrastructure on under-five child mortality rates in Nigeria. Specifically, the study sought to: determine the impact of stock of health practitioners on under-five child mortality in Nigeria; ascertain the impact of health immunization programme on under-five child mortality in Nigeria and assess the impact of hospital bed space on under-five child mortality in Nigeria. This study made use of ex-post-facto research design. The data analytical techniques were descriptive Statistics, Augmented Dickey-Fuller Unit Root test and dynamic ordinary least square method (DOLS). These variables of the study consist of under-five-child (UFCM), stock of health practitioners (SHP), health immunization programme (HIP) and hospital bed space (HBS) were sourced from the CBN Statistical bulletin and World Bank database (WDI) from 1991 to 2025. The empirical result shows that stock of health practitioners have negative and significant impact under-five child mortality (t-statistic -2.1518< Sig-value; 0.05; P-value; 0.0445); health immunization programme has negative and significant impact under-five child mortality (t-statistic -2.8988 < Sig-value; 0.05; P-value; 0.0092) and hospital bed space has negative and significant impact under-five child mortality (t-statistic 17.5220 < Sig-value; 0.05; P-value; 0.0000). The study recommended that Nigeria government at all levels from the federal, state and local to massively invest in the provision of health infrastructure which is a strong viable means of reducing mortality incidence in Nigeria. Nigeria’s share of government expenditure to the health sector falls massively below the minimum standard of 16% as recommended by UNESCO for a developing country.