Introduction:

Child Mortality is correlated with poverty and a lower development of geographic communities. A study of child mortality was made over nine years in the central area of Cartago, Costa Rica.

Objetive:

To determine the factors associated with the infant death and compare them with those found in the international literature.

Methodology:

The factors related to child mortality were determined by comparing the more socially deprived category with the least in each variable. For this purpose the ¨exposed¨ rate was compared against the ¨not exposed¨, a difference between the rates was established, along with the prevalence ratio and the p value.

Results:

The variables with a bigger risk for child death were; Year of death, mother's level of study, age at time of death, weight at birth, mother's socioeconomic condition, complications during pregnancy, type of risk in the pregnancy, mother's paid activities, quality of housing and father's level of study.

Discussion:

As a result a theory was validated, which states that poverty and development conditions are the biggest predictors of child death.

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