Forecasting Under Five Mortality Rate for Oman Using a Machine Learning Technique

This study uses annual time series data on under five mortality rate for Oman 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 ANN (12, 12, 1) model is stable in forecasting under five mortality rate. ANN model projections indicate that U5MR will remain around 11 deaths per 1000 live births throughout the out of sample period. Therefore, we encourage the government of Oman to address all the factors that significantly contribute to under five mortality in the country.