Relationship between causes of death and education level of South African youth in 2014: A bivariate analysis study

Abstract

Youth mortality is a challenge in South Africa, where on a daily basis a number of death are reported and are related to youth. The distressing part in it all is that ethically no parent should bury their own child. The school dropout rate is also a correlated concern. The report from the Education Policy and Data Center (2014) states that although the youth in the age category 15 - 24 years may still be in school and striving towards their educational goals, it is notable that approximately 1 % of the youth have no formal education and 7% of the youth have attained at most incomplete primary education, connoting that in total 7% of 15 - 24 year olds have not completed primary education in South Africa. The objective of the study is to determine whether there is a relationship between education and causes of death, in order to utilise education as a factor that can assist reduce youth mortality significantly and speedily. The study therefore investigated this topical issue of association between these factors utilising bivariate techniques such as Chi-Square test, Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis test, Friedman test, Logistics regression and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. The test adopted here revealed that there is a significant relationship between education and causes of death; and that the odds of the youth mortality could decrease if more youth had higher levels of education. Through the Friedman test it was noted that there is a statistically significant difference in the causes of death depending on education level of the youth. However, the strength of the relationship between education and causes of death was insubstantial.