Background:

Methods: The secondary data analysis was done using data from survey of Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey of 2016 which captured the information of 5 years preceding the survey period. The data of 7230 pregnant mothers with 7 months and more and live births nested within 622 EAs were used. Statistical analysis was done by using STATA version 14.1 and by considering the hierarchical nature of the data, multilevel logistic regression models were fitted to identify community and individual level factors associated with perinatal mortality and GIS version 10.1 were used for spatial analysis as Moran I statistics fitted to identify global autocorrelation and local autocorrelation were identified using Sat Scan version 9.6.

Result: Perinatal mortality rate was per 1000 pregnant mother and significantly associated with the maternal age, wealth index, partners education, birth interval, sex of household head, history of terminating pregnancy, having at least one ANC follow up and place of delivery. Spatial analysis indicated the Somali region have high perinatal mortality rate and Addis Ababa and some part of Tigray region showed low perinatal mortality.

Perinatal mortality rate was relatively high in Ethiopia and there is significant spatial difference between regions. The perinatal mortality was significantly associated with the maternal age, wealth index, partners education, birth interval, sex of household head, history of terminating pregnancy, ANC follow up and place of delivery.

Key words: Ethiopian Demographic and Health survey, perinatal mortality, neonatal mortality, still birth, Ethiopia