Risk factors for childhood mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. A comparison of data from a Demographic and Health Survey and from a Demographic Surveillance System.

Full Abstract

OBJECTS:
In a comparative analysis, the effect of risk factors for childhood mortality in Burkina Faso, sub-Saharan Africa, were computed from Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and Demographic Surveillance System (DSS), two very different sources. While most analyses so far determined levels of risk factors, this analysis focuses on the effects of those risk factors.

METHODS:
Mortality levels are often calculated by strata of risk factor levels separately for each factor. In this publication, their effect was modelled jointly by survival analysis, using all-cause childhood mortality as outcome variable. All live births in rural Burkina Faso in the period of 1994-1998 recorded by the DHS survey Burkina Faso 1998-1999 (5018 births) and the Demographic Surveillance System based in Nouna, western Burkina Faso (6196 births) were included.

RESULTS:
A simultaneous estimation of hazard rate ratios by a Cox regression model yielded similar estimates for the DHS and DSS data, in line with previous findings based on the Nouna DSS alone. Although DHS surveys do not include children whose mothers had died, ignoring the strong risk factor "death of the mother" does not strongly affect DHS-based results.

CONCLUSIONS:
Despite the different nature of survey (DHS) and longitudinal (DSS) data, these findings demonstrate that, despite some limitations, results derived from DHS surveys are broadly comparable to DSS data. Both are valuable tools for assessing the importance of risk factors for childhood mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, and they could be combined for better predictions.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Hammer, Gaël P (GP); Kouyaté, Bocar (B); Ramroth, Heribert (H); Becher, Heiko (H);

Affiliation: Department of Tropical Hygiene and Public Health, University of Heidelberg, Germany. GHammer(-atsign-)Uni-Mainz.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Acta tropica (Acta Trop), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Jul; vol 98 (issue 3) : pp 212-8

Dates: Created 2006/07/24; Completed 2006/09/28; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 16777046, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Africa South of the Sahara - epidemiology
Aging
Child
Child Welfare - statistics & numerical data
Child, Preschool
Demography
Female

Female
Health Surveys
Humans
Infant
Infant Mortality - trends
Male
Mortality - trends
Population Surveillance
Risk Factors

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.