An Application on Causality Analysis of Infant Mortality in Turkey

Infant mortality is defined as the death of babies born in one year due to various reasons before they reach their first birthday. Factors such as social, economic, hereditary and disease cause infants to lose their lives. In this study, investigations were made about the social and economic factors that cause infant deaths in Turkey. By taking annual data between 1990-2021 in Turkey, the relationship between infant mortality and life expectancy, birth rate, primary school attendance rate of women, number of doctors and hospitals, annual income per capita and number of refugees coming to the country was analyzed. With Augmented Dickey Fuller Unit Root Test, the data of the variables used in the study were first removed from the unit root and made stationary, and Granger Causality Test was applied with VAR Analysis. In addition to examining the causality between the variables in the study, it was concluded that the technological developments such as the development of machinery and devices in the field of medicine in recent years have also minimized infant mortality. In the study, apart from examining the causality between the variables, it was concluded that infant deaths were minimized since technological developments such as the development of machinery and devices in the field of medicine in recent years will increase the efficiency in the health sector.