Maternal Intimate Partner Violence and under-five morbidity in Nigeria

Under-five morbidity and mortality is a great public health problem and has deleterious effect on the health of children globally. Despite the decline in child morbidity and mortality rates globally, the under-five mortality rate is still high in most African countries. Although the causes of mortality of children in Africa have been identified, and there has been a substantial improvement in health status in the last decade, Africa still remains a continent with high prevalence of under-5 mortality. Nigeria in particular has a high under-five mortality rate which is estimated to be 143 per 1000 live births. The effect of social determinants of health on this high mortality rate remains under studied in Africa. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is assumed to be one of these social determinants which adversely affect the capacity of the mother to care for the child.