Risk Factors of Primary Infertility among Women in Bangladesh: A Study through Multilevel Poisson Regression

Tapan Kumar Roy , Deparment of Population Science & Human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi

Infertility issue has been neglected in reproductive health policy in Bangladesh, instead emphasis has been on problem of overpopulation and fertility controlled. At present Bangladesh has been achieved a great success in fertility controlled and it is now near about replacement fertility level. However, no attempt has been made to investigate underlying issues on infertility through Poisson regression. This study used the extracted recent Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) data. For this purpose, 13,577 women have been selected from 17,863 considering a conceptual framework. It identifies risk factors of primary infertility through Poisson regression considering rare count data. The multilevel poisson regression has been applied to data hierarchy. The result shows that infertility prevalence is 1.8 percent and it significantly varies with different covariates. Poisson regression presents that the incidence rate ratio (IRR) is significant for age, residence, wealth index, age at marriage, body mass index (BMI), regular menstruation and cooking fuel. However, age, age at marriage and BMI are significant in multilevel poisson regression considering cluster effect. The IRR indicates that 60% lower infertility among women who had aged 35 and more years than women aged less than equal to 34 years. It is interesting that obese women are 1.35 times higher risk of infertility than women who lies on standard BMI measure. This study will be a milestone for policy makers regarding infertility situation in Bangladesh and help them to make appropriate decision.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course