CAUSE-SPECIFIC MORTALITY OF AFRICAN CHILD REN - A CASE-STUDY IN SENEGAL BASED ON THE VERBAL AUTOPSY APPROACH

In countries in which the sick are rarely examined by a physician and where medical records often do not include information on the cause of death, other sources must be used to obtain this information. A metho d called << verbal autopsy >> which makes it possible for medically un qualified persons to collect information on cause of death has been us ed in several less developed countries. After each death, a standardiz ed questionnaire is administered to the families involved which contai ns questions on the symptoms and history of the illness which resulted in the death. This method was applied to all deaths of children less than five years old which occurred in the Bandafassi area of Eastern S enegal between 1984 and 1993. In this area a population of some 8 000 individuals has been studied during the last 20 years, using demograph ic survey techniques. Although the proportion of cases for which infor mation on cause of death is not available (30 to 40 per cent of those sampled), the method helps to determine the principal developments in mortality linked to demographic or climatic factors (sex, season of de ath). As these surveys were taken each year, the results provide an in sight into changes over time of the most significant factors and make it possible to assess the success of existing health programmes and su ggest directions for future surveys.