A Survey On Birth And Death Registration In A Semi-urban Settlement In Middle-belt Nigeria

Objectives: This is a descriptive cross-sectional survey conducted in a semi-urban settlement in the Middle-Belt of Nigeria to determine awareness, attitude and practice of birth and death registration.

Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional survey. Three hundred and two heads of households were interviewed in houses selected by systematic random sampling and birth registration certificate checked for children below 11 years.

Results: The study showed that awareness of birth registration was high in the study population and the major source of awareness is through government agencies and mass media play very little role. The awareness of death registration is however very low. Out of the 217 (71.9%) households that had children below 11 years, total children below 11 years is 473 children, 354 (74.8%) of them had their births registered and only 202 (57.1%) had registration certificate during the interview. Of the 209 households that recorded deaths in the household within the last 10 years only 24 (11.8%) households reported registering deaths in the last 10 years.

Conclusion: Birth registration and death registration need to be complete for planning purpose, which is largely deficient as shown by this study. It is therefore important to conduct further studies to identify ways forward towards improving birth and death registration in Nigeria.

Key words: Birth, death registration, semi-urban, Nigeria

 

Birth and death are vital events that are registered in most countries. While birth and death registration in developed countries is done well enough to be useful for determining population changes and planning , the situation in most developing countries is very poor (1-4). Reports show that 1 in 3 newborns of about 40 million births are unregistered (5). The importance of registration of births and deaths for national and local planning has not received adequate attention in Nigeria (1). In Nigeria birth and death registration started from the colonial era and is currently carried out by National Population Commission, which was inaugurated in 1989(6). Very few studies have been conducted in communities in Nigeria to determine the extent to which these vital events are registered. This study examined the awareness, attitude and practices birth and death registration in a semi-urban community in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.