Causes of under-five child Mortality : A retrospective verbal autopsy study
1
1 Health promotion and disease prevention, Tigray health bureau, Mekelle, Ethiopia
2
2 Epidemiology and Global Health, Umea University, Umea, Sweden
3
3 Family health and clinical medicine, Umea University, Umea, Sweden
4
4 Health sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Popul. Med. 2026;8(Supplement Supplement 1):
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION:
Ensuring availability of reliable, and timely data on where and from what cause these children are dying, is up most important to designing locally relevant intervention tailored to specific health problems, ultimately accelerating the rate of reduction in under-five child mortality (U5CM) (1,2). A verbal autopsy (VA) method is being increasingly used as a means of estimating the cause of death, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where there is no or weak vital registration system, and most deaths pass unregistered and unattended by medical professionals (3,4)
METHODS:
VA survey was carried out in six randomly selected districts of Tigray Region. HEWs received training on the WHO VA questionnaires separately designed for neonatal and post-neonatal deaths (5), and ethical procedures for conducting interviews. Initially, the HEWs conducted a census to record all live births and U5C death that occurred one year prior to the survey. They subsequently visited households that had reported deaths and interviewed the parents or caregivers. Causes of death were assigned using the InterVA-4 algorithm, and cause-specific mortality proportions were analyzed using SPSS.
RESULTS:
A total of 469 U5C deaths were reported, and VA data was collected for 393 (87.0%). Infectious disease attributes for (80.4%) of the post neonatal deaths- diarrheal disease (23.0%), malaria (20.0%), acute respiratory infection (18.5%), severe malnutrition (9.1%) and HIV/AIDS (8.7%). While pneumonia (35.9%), sepsis (25.0 %), prematurity (18.8%), and birth asphyxia (12.5 %) attributed to 92.2 % neonatal deaths.
CONCLUSIONS:
our finding indicate that most U5C death are caused by infectious and neonatal conditions and reaffirm that mortality surveillance conducted by HEWs can provide reliable estimates consistent with national and global findings (6,7). The variations in the magnitude of causes of death among district, highlight the importance of ongoing local assessments to generate actionable evidence, guide resource allocation, tailor interventions to community contexts, and overall child health promotion efforts.
Ensuring availability of reliable, and timely data on where and from what cause these children are dying, is up most important to designing locally relevant intervention tailored to specific health problems, ultimately accelerating the rate of reduction in under-five child mortality (U5CM) (1,2). A verbal autopsy (VA) method is being increasingly used as a means of estimating the cause of death, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where there is no or weak vital registration system, and most deaths pass unregistered and unattended by medical professionals (3,4)
METHODS:
VA survey was carried out in six randomly selected districts of Tigray Region. HEWs received training on the WHO VA questionnaires separately designed for neonatal and post-neonatal deaths (5), and ethical procedures for conducting interviews. Initially, the HEWs conducted a census to record all live births and U5C death that occurred one year prior to the survey. They subsequently visited households that had reported deaths and interviewed the parents or caregivers. Causes of death were assigned using the InterVA-4 algorithm, and cause-specific mortality proportions were analyzed using SPSS.
RESULTS:
A total of 469 U5C deaths were reported, and VA data was collected for 393 (87.0%). Infectious disease attributes for (80.4%) of the post neonatal deaths- diarrheal disease (23.0%), malaria (20.0%), acute respiratory infection (18.5%), severe malnutrition (9.1%) and HIV/AIDS (8.7%). While pneumonia (35.9%), sepsis (25.0 %), prematurity (18.8%), and birth asphyxia (12.5 %) attributed to 92.2 % neonatal deaths.
CONCLUSIONS:
our finding indicate that most U5C death are caused by infectious and neonatal conditions and reaffirm that mortality surveillance conducted by HEWs can provide reliable estimates consistent with national and global findings (6,7). The variations in the magnitude of causes of death among district, highlight the importance of ongoing local assessments to generate actionable evidence, guide resource allocation, tailor interventions to community contexts, and overall child health promotion efforts.
| eISSN: | 2654-1459 |
We process personal data collected when visiting the website. The function of obtaining information about users and their behavior is carried out by voluntarily entered information in forms and saving cookies in end devices. Data, including cookies, are used to provide services, improve the user experience and to analyze the traffic in accordance with the Privacy policy. Data are also collected and processed by Google Analytics tool (more).
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
