UN InteragencyChild Mortality Estimation

Prepared by Danzhen You

Outline

• The UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME)

• Definition of child mortality indicators

• Data and methods to estimate child mortality

• Key results from the latest estimates

• CME Info

The UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME)

• Formed in 2004, led by UNICEF, WHO, and includes members of UN Population Division and The World Bank

• Objectives of the IGME– Harmonize estimates within the UN system– Improve methods for child mortality estimation– Produce consistent estimates of child mortality worldwide for reporting on

progress towards MDG 4– Enhance the capacity of countries to produce timely estimates of child mortality:

regional workshops and country visits

• Technical Advisory Group (TAG)– Independent– Composed of leading experts in demography and biostatistics– Provide technical guidance on estimation methods, technical issues and strategies

for data analysis and data quality assessment

Capacity building

• Five regional workshops since 2008– Asia, 2008 (23 countries/71 participants)– Latin America, 2009 (14 /30)– West and Central Africa, 2009 (21 /49)– Eastern and Southern Africa, 2010 (20/56)– Middle East and North Africa, 2010 (16/60)

These workshops provided: Strengthen capacity in child mortality estimation, feedback on missing data and feedback on plausibility of estimates

• Individual country visits to discuss child mortality estimates and provide technical support, including:

Rwanda (2008), Mexico (2008), Brazil (2008), Nigeria (2009), Suriname (2010), Mongolia (2010)

Data Collection

• Collect all available data – census, household surveys (DHS, MICS, etc.), vital registration, and so on

• UNICEF’s main data collection process – Country Report on Indicators for the Goals (CRING)

• WHO routine data collection process - vital registration data

Estimates consultation

• Workshops and country visits

• UNICEF country consultation • ongoing work• before release

• WHO country consultation

Definition of child mortality indicators

Child mortality indicators: definition

Mortality among young children can be subdivided by age group

Category Includes deaths that occur:

Neonatal mortality During the first 28 days of life

Post-neonatal mortality At ages 1 to 11 months

Infant mortality Between birth and exact age 1

Child mortality At ages 1 to 4 years

Under-five mortality Between birth and exact age 5

Child mortality indicators: definition

Mortality rates such as U5MR and IMR are not strictly rates but are the probability of dying within a specific period

Indicator Definition

Under-five mortality rate

Probability of dying between birth and exact age 5 years expressed as per 1000 live births.

Infant mortality rateProbability of dying between birth and exact age 1 year expressed as per 1000 live births.

Data and methods to estimate child mortality

Data• Data source

– vital registration systems– population censuses– household surveys– sample registration systems– Demographic surveillance sitesdirect estimates and indirect estimates, trend lineoften used by country as official estimates

• Data errors and data quality assessment– sampling errors (surveys)– omission of deaths– misreporting of child’s age at death or date of birth (direct only)– selection bias– violation of assumptions (indirect only)

Methods

• Compile all nationally representative data for each country

• Fit a regression line (Spline or Loess) to all data points that meet data quality standards established by the IGME and extrapolate to a common reference year

• Additional adjustment applied to countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence

• Estimates generated in different rounds may not be comparable

• IGME Estimates are based on data from surveys, census, vital registrations, etc, but may differ from these data

• Used by UN as official estimates for monitoring MDG 4

Data rich and consistent country

Mali

The available data sources cluster over a narrow band and show considerable consistency

The estimate line is fitted to all the data

Other countries have similar patterns: Bangladesh, Benin, Indonesia, Peru, Venezuela, etc.

Data rich country but with wide variations in mortality levels from different sources

Nigeria

Has one of the widest spreads of source data, with a range from 120 to 240 deaths per 1,000 live birth

In driving the estimate line, all sources with dotted lines are rated of lower quality and are not used.

Other countries with wide range: Azerbaijan, Guyana, Mauritania, Tajikistan, etc.

Data rich country but with wide variations in mortality levels from different sources

Tajikistan

Data rich country with wide variations in the past, and no data available for the most recent years

Cambodia

country with lower estimates from vital registration

Ukraine

Data poor country with wide variations

Angola

Data poor country with messy data

Djibouti

Why not use data from data sources as official estimates?

• Lack of a single source of high quality data covering the last several decades

– Lack of civil registration systems that accurately record all births and deaths

• Data quality is an issue in some surveys

• Discrepancies may exist between estimates from different surveys

• Survey data are usually not timely for child mortality indicators– Direct estimates: refer to a five year period prior to the survey– Indirect estimates: from women aged 25-29, refer to about 2-3 years before the

survey

• Consistent trend line from 1990 is needed for monitoring MDG 4

The release of the Latest Estimates

Key results Under-five mortality rate has fallen by a third globally

The global under-five mortality rate has fallen by a third since 1990—from 89 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 60 in 2009.

Under-five mortality declined in all regions

Substantial differences across regions

Key results8.1 million children under five died in 2009

Globally, the number of deaths among children under age five has fallen from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009. Thismeans that more than 22,000 children under five die each day—12,000 fewer than in 1990.

Key resultsUnder-five death is increasingly concentrated in a few countries

About half of global under-five deaths in 2009 occurred in only five countries: India, Nigeria, DR Congo, Pakistanand China. India, with 21 percent, and Nigeria, with 10 percent, together accountfor nearly a third of under-five deaths worldwide.

Causes of deathsSome 40 percent of under-five deaths occur within the first month of life (neonatal period). The two biggest killers of children under age five are pneumonia (18 percent of deaths) and diarrhoeal diseases (15 percent).

Key resultsThe progress towards MDG 4 is insufficient globally

Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and Oceania are not on track

Key resultsEstimates of U5MR for selected countries in 1990 and 2009

Key resultsProportional decline of U5MR for selected countries, 1990-2009

CME InfoThe IGME’s Child Mortality Database: www.childmortality.org

www.childmortality.org

CME Info

CME Info plan

• Develop CME Info 3.0– Incorporate the planned changes in methods– Make the system more user friendly

• Develop a desktop version of CME Info

To summarize

• Data on child mortality have sampling or non-sampling errors. Under-reporting is more common than over-reporting. Data quality assessment is important

• Survey data are usually not timely for child mortality indicators

• The importance of uncertainty range around estimates

• UN uses IGME estimates for monitoring MDG 4

• Discrepancies exist between interagency estimates and official estimates used by country government

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