Forecasting Under Five Mortality Rate for Colombia Using Double Exponential Smoothing Model

This study uses annual time series data on under five mortality rate (U5MR) for Colombia from 1960 to 2020 to predict future trends of U5MR over the period 2021 to 2030. Residuals and forecast evaluation statistics of the applied model indicate that the model is stable in forecasting U5MR. The Holt’s linear exponential smoothing model was applied in this study to predict U5MR in Colombia. The optimal values of smoothing constants α and β are 0.9 and 0.1 respectively based on minimum MSE. The findings of this study indicate that annual U5MR will continue to decline over the out of sample period. Therefore, we encourage the Colombian government to address various challenges that are faced by under five children who live in disadvantaged communities across the country.