The association of child marriage with morbidities and mortality among children under 5 years in Afghanistan: findings from a national survey

Table 2 The association of maternal child marriage with morbidity, mortality, and low birth weight among births in the past 5 years to ever-married women aged 15–24 years in Afghanistan

Health Indicator	Prevalence	Age at marriage < 18 years	Age at marriage ≥ 18 years	COR (95% CI)	AOR (95% CI) ^a	AOR (95% CI) ^b
Health Indicator	N (%)	N (%)	N (%)
Diarrhea (past 2 wk) ^c	2310 (29.47)	1505 (65.71)	805 (34.29)	0.89 (0.74–1.08)	0.94 (0.77–1.17)	0.96 (0.76–1.21)
ARI (past 2 wk) ^c	1551 (23.23)	999 (36.06)	552 (36.06)	0.81 (0.62–1.05)	0.83 (0.64–1.08)	0.81 (0.61–1-07)
Fever (past 2 wk) ^c	2019 (28.98)	1321 (65.16)	698 (34.84)	0.85 (0.64–1.13)	0.91 (0.68–1.24)	0.86 (0.61–1.21)
Child mortality (< 5y)	423 (4.50)	319 (77.44)	104 (22.56)	1.64 (0.98–2.72)	1.44 (0.90–2.29)	1.26 (0.77–2.03)
Infant mortality (< y)	400 (4.32)	302 (76.99)	98 (23.01)	1.59 (0.94–2.68)	1.35 (0.84–2.18)	1.13 (0.70–1.84)
Neonatal mortality (< 1 mo)	244 (2.64)	191 (82.89)	53 (17.11)	2.30 (1.52–3.49)^*	1.94 (1.25–3.01)^*	1.22 (0.64–2.32)
Small/very small infant	2088 (24.26)	1402 (67.61)	686 (32.39)	0.97 (0.79–1.19)	0.86 (0.70–1.07)	0.89 (0.71–1.11)

^*P < .001
^aAdjusted odds ratio (AOR) for age of child (except for mortality indices), sex of child, multiparous birth, maternal age and education, place of residence, ethnicity, and wealth index
^bAdjusted odds ratio (AOR): Additionally adjusted for adequacy of ANC
^cSample restricted to living children under 5 years of age in the past 5 years (n = 8777). The absolute number of participants does not perfectly correspond to percentages because the percentages are weighted. All analyses used women married as adults as the reference group

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