Making Use of ARIMA Model Predictions to Inform Maternal and Neonatal Healthcare Policies in the United States of America

Neonatal mortality remains a global health problem hence public health interventions must be designed to address this challenge. Efforts must be directed to improve the quality of healthcare services during antenatal, delivery and postnatal periods. This research uses annual time series data on neonatal mortality rate (NMR) for USA from 1968 to 2019 to predict future trends of NMR over the period 2020 to 2030. Unit root tests have shown that the series under consideration is an I (2) variable. The optimal model based on AIC is the ARIMA (0,2,1) model. The ARIMA model predictions indicate that neonatal mortality is expected to hover around 3 deaths per 1000 live births throughout the out of sample period. Hence, the US government should address various maternal and child health challenges existing in different parts of the country to keep neonatal mortality under control.