Assessing the Feasibility of Achieving Substantial Reduction of Under Five Mortality in Liberia by 2030 Using Artificial Neural Networks

This study uses annual time series data on under five mortality rate (U5MR) for Liberia from 1960 to 2020 to predict future trends of U5MR over the period 2021 to 2030. Residuals and forecast evaluation criteria indicate that the applied model is stable in forecasting under five mortality rate. ANN (12, 12, 1) model projections indicate that U5MR will remain very high throughout the out of sample period. Therefore, we encourage the Liberian government to address all the challenges that contribute to under five mortality by paying particular attention to capacitating primary healthcare facilities across the country.