Maldives’s Success Story in Controlling Under Five Mortality: Evidence From The Holt’s Linear Method

This study uses annual time series data on under five (U5MR) for Maldives from 1962 to 2020 to predict future trends of U5MR over the period 2021 to 2030. Residuals and model evaluation statistics indicate that the applied Holt’s linear method is stable in forecasting U5MR in Maldives. The optimal values of smoothing parameters α and β are 0.9 and 0.2 respectively based on minimum MSE. The double exponential smoothing model projections revealed that under five mortality will be under control throughout the out of sample period. Therefore, we implore the government of Maldives to address all the existing challenges that contribute to mortality among under five children in order to keep under five mortality under control.