These mortality rates depends on both: The health, nutrition and home environment of children The quality of health care that is available to children The mortality rate will increase if either the health, nutrition and home environment of children is poor or the health care service are poor. Often both poor socioeconomic conditions and inadequate [...]
Because they are one of the best ways of measuring the wellbeing of children. An improvement in mortality rates for a health district from one year to the next is a good way of showing that the wellbeing of children in that district is improving. An increase in the mortality rates indicates that the wellbeing [...]
No. Mortality rates may also differ between different time periods. In most countries mortality rates have fallen over the past years. With the AIDS epidemic in Southern Africa, infants and under-5 mortality rates are rising. Therefore, mortality rates allow you to compare different groups of children, either in different places (districts, regions, provinces or countries) [...]
No. Mortality rates often differ markedly between health districts. Usually the rates are higher for poor districts than wealthy districts. Similarly, rates are higher in developing (poorly resourced) than in industrialised (well resourced) countries. Therefore, a single mortality rate for the whole nation is only of limited value.
Yes. Mortality rate is usually calculated for a given health district (or region). For example, to determine the under-5 mortality rate for a health district, all under-5 deaths in each part of that service (each clinic and hospital) must be added together. The rate is then expressed per 1000 live births in that district. Sometimes [...]
Usually the infant and under-5 mortality rates are calculated for a calendar year. This is called the annual mortality rate. Sometimes the mortality rate is expressed over a longer period of time, e.g. over 10 years. It is less accurate to calculate mortality rates over periods shorter than one year.
Under-5 deaths are usually divided into age groups: Neonatal mortality includes all live born infants who die in the first 28 days of life. Often neonatal deaths are further divided into early neonatal deaths (deaths in the first 7 days of life) and late neonatal deaths (deaths between 8 and 28 days of life). The [...]
The number of children who die under the age of 5 years is usually expressed as a rate per 1000). Therefore, the under-5 mortality rate is defined as the number of children who die under the age of 5 years per 1000 live born infants. The under-5 mortality rate indicates the probability that a live [...]
This is the number of children who die expressed as a proportion of all the children who could possibly die. For example, if there are 1000 liveborn children and 10 die, the mortality rate for these children is 10 per 1000. It is more useful to know the mortality rate than only the number of [...]
The most common way of recording the number of deaths during childhood is to count the number of children who die before the age of 5 years, therefore children who are born alive but die before their fifth birthday will be counted as under-5 deaths but children who die on or after their fifth birthday [...]
How well a district, region, province or nation is caring for their children Which districts, regions or provinces have the greatest need for better child care It allows for comparison of mortality rates between different areas or countries with a similar income. In other words, how well we are using our income to improve the [...]
The infant mortality rate in South Africa is estimated to be about 55 per 1000. Therefore, out of every 1000 infants born alive in South Africa, 55 will die before reaching the age of 12 months. This can be compared to an infant mortality rate of less than 10/1000 in developed countries and 20/1000 or [...]
This is not accurately known because the collection of mortality data is not good in all regions as many childhood deaths are not reported. However, the under-5 mortality rate in South Africa is estimated to be about 70/1000. In other words, for every 1000 infants that are born alive in South Africa, 70 will die [...]
In under resourced (poor) countries or under resourced communities in wealthy countries the under-5 mortality rate is usually higher than 80. Every effort must be made to reduce the under-5 mortality rate in poor countries so that it approaches the rate in well resourced countries. Note the enormous difference in rates between wealthy and poor [...]
In well resourced (wealthy) countries or well resourced communities in poor countries the under-5 mortality rate is usually below 10. This reflects a high standard of child health, nutrition and home conditions as well as a good health care service. The neonatal mortality rate and infant mortality rate in industrialised countries is usually below 5/1000 [...]
