Employing ARIMA Model Projections to Inform Neonatal Healthcare Policies and Resource Allocation in the Syrian Republic
Abstract
The Syrian crisis has caused serious damage to
health infrastructure and triggered exodus of thousands of qualified and
experienced healthcare workers leaving the health system at the verge of
collapsing.The negative impacts of this war will remain a huge contributing
factor to neonatal mortality even in future. This study uses annual time series
data on neonatal mortality rate (NMR) for Syria from 1960 to 2019 to predict
future trends of NMR over the period 2020 to 2030. Unit root tests have shown
that the series under consideration is an I (1) variable. The optimal model
based on AIC is the ARIMA (2,1,1) model. The ARIMA model projections indicate
that neonatal mortality will decline slightly and hover around 10 deaths per
1000 live births throughout the forecast period. Therefore, we encourage Syrian
authorities to attend to various factors which significantly contribute to
neonatal mortality across the country such as destroyed infrastructure and
shortage of skilled healthcare workers.
Country : Zimbabwe
1 Dr. Smartson. P. NYONI2 Thabani NYONI
ZICHIRe Project, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
Independent Researcher & Health Economist, Harare, Zimbabwe
IRJIET, Volume 7, Issue 8, August 2023 pp. 460-466
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