DATA ON BIRTH-WEIGHT IN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES - CAN SURVEYS HELP

The main source of data on birth weight in developing countries is sta tistics from health facilities, although most developing countries do not produce annual estimates of the incidence of low birth weight from these data. Such estimates would be subject to selection bias as the data are usually limited to babies born within health facilities, and therefore are representative of a subgroup that is markedly different from the overall population of neonates. Since 1990 the Demographic an d Health Surveys programme has included questions on recalled birth we ight and relative size at birth in 15 national surveys. In this articl e, we show that these cross-sectional surveys can provide a useful dat a source for making national estimates of mean birth weight and the in cidence of low birth weight. The extent of misclassification of birth weight is, however, too large to use the data on relative size at birt h as an indicator of low birth weight at the individual level.