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IHME develops new methods to better capture child mortalityNew approach will provide countries more timely results with little expense April 13, 2010–New analytical methods developed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington allow countries to more accurately measure child mortality in the very recent past, enabling policymakers to respond more quickly to pressing public health concerns. The new methods will allow researchers and health officials to see not only the national picture but also mortality trends in specific regions, revealing health disparities. The study, Measuring Under-Five Mortality: Validation of New Low-Cost Methods, appears in the April 13, 2010, issue of the journal PLoS Medicine. “Getting the most up-to-date estimates will be tremendously useful for policymakers who are trying to make informed decisions,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Julie Knoll Rajaratnam, Assistant Professor of Global Health at IHME. Mortality rates typically are calculated from death registration data, compiled from death certificates, in countries that have such systems. In countries lacking death registration data, researchers rely on two primary methods for counting the number of children who have died. In one method, survey takers ask mothers how many children they have had and how many children have died. This is known as a summary birth history. The other approach is for interviewers to ask much more detailed questions, including when the births and deaths occurred, to create what is known as a complete birth history. Complete birth histories generally result in stronger mortality estimates, but they are far more costly to conduct because of the amount of time and staff required. “We wanted to find a way for countries with limited budgets to be able to capture the most relevant information without the expense of having to collect the additional data required for a complete birth history,” Rajaratnam said. To do this, IHME researchers, working with the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland in Australia, analyzed data from 166 health surveys that used both survey methods. The researchers created five new methods for calculating under-5 mortality from summary birth histories and then checked those methods against the data produced by analyses based on complete birth histories. In doing so, they found that IHME’s new methods outperformed the standard method for analyzing summary birth histories by an average of 43.7%. The new methods worked even better for more recent time periods. The researchers found that, in the five years just prior to the survey, the new methods showed a 53.3% improvement, on average, over the standard method. IHME proposes that the two questions that comprise a summary birth history can easily be added to existing survey programs and national censuses to allow further analysis and better monitoring of progress in global child mortality rates. IHME will provide analysts and policymakers with easy access to the new methods both online and through training workshops. This will allow any country to use the methods to evaluate trends in child mortality and create a stronger foundation for decisions on resource allocation and intervention strategies. Full Citation: Rajaratnam JK, Tran LN, Lopez AD, Murray CJL. Measuring Under-Five Mortality: Validation of New Low-Cost Methods. PLoS Medicine. 2010 Apr 13; 7(4):e1000253. *Software capable of displaying a PDF is required for viewing or printing this document. You may download a free copy of Adobe Reader from the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. |
