BACKGROUND In 2010 more than 7.7 million children died before their fifth birthday. Over 98% of these deaths occurred in developing countries, and recent estimates have attributed hundreds of thousands of these deaths to suboptimal breastfeeding. METHODS This study estimated prevalence of suboptimal breastfeeding for 137 developing countries from 1990 to 2010. These estimates were compared ag...

BACKGROUND Rates of child malnutrition and mortality in India remain high. We tested the hypothesis that rising food prices are contributing to India's slow progress in improving childhood survival. METHODS Using rounds 2 and 3 (2002-08) of the Indian District Level Household Survey, we calculated neonatal, infant and under-five mortality rates in 364 districts, and merged these with district...

Child malnutrition is an important cause of under-5 mortality and morbidity around the globe. Despite the partial success of (inter)national efforts to reduce child mortality, under-5 mortality rates continue to be high. The multidimensional approaches of the Sustainable Development Goals may suggest new directions for rethinking strategies for reducing child mortality and malnutrition. We prop...

BACKGROUND The rate of decline in child mortality is too slow in most African countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Effective strategies to monitor child mortality are needed where accurate vital registration data are lacking to help governments assess and report on progress in child survival. We present result...