Tendances de la mortalité et de l’état nutritionnel au Niger

The study presents an analysis of mortality trends and some of its factors in Niger since 1960. The focus is on infant and child mortality (0 to 4 years old) and young adult mortality (15-49 years old). In the absence of vital statistics, various surveys and demographic censuses are used to reconstruct trends and annual variations in mortality, and in particular DHS surveys. Overall, infant mortality declined sharply between 1960 and 2010, but irregularly. After favorable trends in the first years, infant and child mortality stagnated for about twenty years, before dropping rapidly after 1990. The difficult 1970-1989 period was seriously affected by two episodes of drought, during of which mortality increased significantly. In the later period, a few years of drought also saw small increases in mortality. The mortality of young adults is less well known: it also evolved favorably between 1990 and 2010, but no reliable data are available for the drought periods of the 1970's and 1980's. The mortality decline between 1990 and 2010 occurred in absence of any increase in per capita income, but thanks to an improvement in public health and above all thanks to international aid. No demographic data was available in 2021 to measure changes in mortality between 2010 and 2020. Finally, child nutritional status improved somewhat between 1992 and 2020, but with ups and downs. The height of adult women aged 15-49 years did not change over the period, however their Body-Mass-Index (BMI) increased slightly between 1992 and 2010. The study discusses the relationships between demographic parameters and the various political, economic and climatic changes since independence.