Those interested in child survival frequently cite and follow the under-five mortality rate. While a useful measure, the under-five mortality rate lumps together neonatal and post-neonatal mortality with deaths in the 1-4 year period. Unfortunately, this hampers public health decision making about the most appropriate child survival strategies as children survive beyond their first year of life.

Background Solid fuel use is the major source of household air pollution (HAP) and accounts for a substantial burden of morbidity and mortality in low and middle income countries. To evaluate and compare childhood mortality attributable to HAP in four South Asian countries. Methods A series of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) datasets for Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan were used for...

BACKGROUND From 1995-2000 the under five mortality rate in Uganda increased from 147.3 to 151.5 deaths per 1000 live births and reasons for the increase were not clear. This study was undertaken to understand factors influencing the increase in under five mortality rate during 1995-2000 in Uganda with a view of suggesting remedial actions. METHODS We performed a comparative retrospective anal...

BACKGROUND Since its founding in 2002, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund) has become the dominant multilateral health financier in low- and middle-income countries. The health impact of the Global Fund remains unknown because existing evaluations measure intermediate outcomes or do not account for preexisting and counterfactual trends. METHODS We conducted ...

More than two years after the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, the total number of lives lost remains unclear, particularly for children under five years old. Mortality for this age group can be estimated using a variety of techniques, but sample proportion estimates may be unreliable in areas with low populations of children under five. To address this problem, we propose a hierarchical Bay...

Household air pollution (HAP) is one of the leading causes of respiratory illness and deaths among children under five years in Bangladesh. This study investigates the association between HAP from cooking fuel and under-five mortality using Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) datasets over the period 2004-2011 (n = 18,308 children), and the extent to which this association differed ...

BACKGROUND Disparities in health outcomes between the poor and the better off are increasingly attracting attention from researchers and policy makers. However, policies aimed at reducing inequity need to be based on evidence of their nature, magnitude, and determinants. OBJECTIVES The study aims to investigate the relationship between household socio-economic status (SES) and under-five mort...

BACKGROUND Information on profiles for under-five causes of death is important to guide choice of child-survival interventions. Global level data have been published, but information at country level is scarce. We aimed at defining national and departmental trends and profiles of under-five mortality in Peru from 1996 through 2000. METHODS We used the Ministry of Health registered under-five ...

! Neonatal mortality (NN): the probability of dying within the first month of life. ! Postneonatal mortality (PNN): the difference between infant and neonatal mortality. ! Infant mortality (1q0): the probability of dying between birth and the first birthday. ! Child mortality (4q1): the probability of dying between exact ages one and five. ! Under-five mortality (5q0): the probability of dying ...