Ordinal regression analyses of breastfeeding duration in the Philippines

• Main Authors: Abolencia, Jesper L., Quipit, Ananias G., Jr.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/17998
• Institution: De La Salle University

One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is to decrease child mortality rate by two-thirds in 2015. A key indicator of this is infant mortality. Numerous literatures have suggested that infant mortality is strongly associated with breastfeeding practice. Thus, understanding its correlates, which include socio-economic, maternal related, and child characteristics and studying their impacts may give us a better view on how to assess the problems related with breastfeeding duration in the Philippines. In this study, an Ordinal Regression procedure with Proportional Odds (PO) cumulative logit and Continuation-ratio (CR) logit link were proposed to determine correlates that significantly characterize breastfeeding duration in the Philippines. Results from this study revealed that mother's age at the birth of the child, child sex (female), and birth order of the child contributed positively to longer breastfeeding duration. On the contrary, however, mother's educational attainment, wealth status, and domiciling in urban areas are found to contradict against longer duration of breastfeeding in the Philippines. The findings of this study suggest that policy-makers and health authorities can play an important role in implementing proper and effective methods in promoting the benefits of breastfeeding which could encourage mothers to breastfeed longer.