Tracking Future Trends of Under Five Mortality Rate for Iraq Using a Machine Learning Algorithm

This study uses annual time series data on under five mortality rate (U5MR) for Iraq 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 U5MR. The ANN (12, 12, 1) model projections indicate that U5MR will remain around 25 deaths per 1000 live births throughout the out of sample period. Therefore, we encourage the government of Iraq to address all the factors that influence under five mortality in the country including improvement of working conditions for healthcare workers and ensuring availability of adequate medical supplies at all levels of healthcare.