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Abstract
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is one of the most important sensitive indicators of the socio-economic and health status of a community in a country. Also, it is an important item in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Moreover, MDG aims to reduce the infant and child mortality by two-thirds between the years of 1990-2015. The paper intends to study the status, trend and disparities of the Infant Mortality Rate in the southern state of India. This study has applied the log-linear growth models to capture the trends of infant mortality rate. In addition, the ANOVA and Duncan multiple comparison techniques were used to compare the infant mortality among the south Indian states along with India. This study result shows that the average IMR is very low in Kerala, moderate in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and high in Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, the state of Tamil Nadu needs to further reduce the IMR to the possible minimum level. In addition, states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have to essentially concentrate more in order to reduce the IMR further. In effect to that, the state government has needed to implement all child health care programs appropriately. Especially in our southern states of India, where the IMR is more. This will help further to reduce the national average of IMR and to attain MDG as soon as possible in India.