Goodness of Fit of Finite Range Reliability Model for Testing Under-reporting of Infant Deaths in India

Developed countries are coupled with better recording and registration system of their vital events where most of the infants deaths are biological in nature. Contrastingly in countries like India, infant deaths are high due to environmental causes coupled with misconceptions due to lack of knowledge, digit preferences for age data responses and poor registration system for lack of infrastructural and resourceful manpower availability which leads to misreporting/underreporting and nonsampling errors in surveys for data on infant deaths. This article is an attempt to fit a reliability model proposed by Mukherji and Islam for estimating misreporting/underreporting of deaths below the first year of life in two states, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh (India), diametrically opposite on the various demographic indicators especially Infant mortality rate. By examining the distribution of expected and observed deaths, we find that there is underreporting/misreporting at different months of age during infancy. The study reveals that there are more environmental problems along with underreporting of infant deaths, digit preference and poor registration system in Uttar Pradesh than Kerala.