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ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENTInfant mortality in Albania: A detailed picture over theperiod 2001-2011Eduard Kakarriqi 1,2 , Bukurie Gega 1 , Bajram Dedja 1 , Alba Merdani 1 ,Dorina Çanaku 1 , Miranda Hajdini 1 , Gazmend Bejtja 31Institute of Public Health, Tirana, Albania;2Faculty of Public Health, University of Medicine, Tirana, Albania;3Ministry of Health, Tirana, Albania.Aim: The study aims at displaying a detailed pictureof infant mortality in Albania, giving the properanswers to the respective issues such as place (infantmortality rates IMRs according to prefecture andcountry level), time (respective IMRs trends overthe period 2001-2011), age-groups (early neonatal,late neonatal and post-neonatal mortality rates), andcausality as well.Methods: Two are the main data sources, namelythe IMR data obtained by the Institute of StatisticsINSTAT (based on death certificates), and IMRoperative data obtained by the Ministry of HealthMoH (data based on timely respective deathnotification by health centres all over the country).As regards the causality, the study was based on ascrutinized analysis of death certificates (availablefrom INSTAT) of all infant deaths in 2001 and2003.Results: (i) there is a significant difference betweenIMRs provided by INSTAT data and IMRSprovided by the MoH operative data, the formerbeing always (far) lowest than the latter; (ii) there isa significant exponential decreasing trend of IMRsat both prefecture and country level over the period2001-2011 in Albania: from a country rate of 17.5/1000 at 2001 to country rates of 9.7/1000 and 8.7/1000 in 2010 and 2011, respectively; (iii)nevertheless, there exist (large) differences of IMRsbetween country prefectures (regions): thoughannual oscillations, regions with the highest IMRs andthose with the lowest ones over years might bepointed out; (iv) the burden of early neonatalmortality rate on the total IMR is increasing overtime; (v) the death causality patterns of the three agegroupsof the first year of age are different: whilethe main death causes in early neonatal period includeNeonatal Diseases and Congenital Malformations,in the late neonatal period and post-neonatal periodthe mortality patterns attempt to be the same withthose of infant mortality (0-1 year) in total, with theAcute Respiratory Infections as the main cause ofdeath; (vi) there are no significant gender-specific(male-female) differences in IMRs; (vii) there are nosignificant differences over time (2001-2011) in theIMRs according to place of residence (urban vs.rural areas).Conclusion: The afore-mentioned results pave theway to draw the respective study conclusions.Keywords: infant mortality, INSTA T, trends over time.50 ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENT