Making Use of Forecasts Produced By the ARIMA Model to Attend to Various Neonatal Healthcare Challenges in the Philippines

Neonatal mortality is an indication of the quality of healthcare services during antenatal, delivery and postnatal periods. Main causes of neonatal mortality in the Philippines are prematurity, asphyxia & birth trauma and congenital malformations. Neonatal healthcare policies should be informed by research evidence, hence this study utilizes the Box-Jenkins ARIMA methodology to detect future trends of neonatal mortality using annual time series data on neonatal mortality rate (NMR) for the Philippines from 1960 to 2019to predict future trends of NMR over the period 2020 to 2030. Unit root tests have shown that the series under consideration is an I (1) variable. The optimal model based on AIC is the ARIMA (3,1,1) model. The study results indicate that neonatal mortality will gradually decline throughout the forecast period to reach levels as low as 8 deaths per 1000 live births by the end of 2030. It is crucial for authorities in the Philippines to address local factors that contribute significantly to adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes such as lack of medical equipment and inadequate healthcare.