Comparative study on mortality pattern among three regions of Bhutan and their relationship to socio-economic factors

Bhutan being isolated for centuries opened its door to the outside world during 1970s, and its planned developmental activities began only during 1960s. Since the beginning of the planned developmental activities there was drastic improvement in every aspects of lives of Bhutanese people and there was seen major uplift in the people’s living standard, as a result Bhutan experienced sharp decline in its mortality level. Rapid improvement of health service and Bhutan government’s policy to provide free health service has really helped in slowing down the countries mortality level. Therefore, this paper aims to look at the patterns of mortality across the country and examine the relationship between mortality level and socio-economic factors of the household. While comparing three regions of Bhutan, unexpectedly it was found that western region had highest deaths during the past one year to 2005 census compared to central and eastern region. Generally illiterate households have experienced more deaths compared to literate households and households with farming occupation have experienced more deaths during the past one year to 2005 census compared to other occupations.