R. Bairagi et al., MEASUREMENT OF OVERALL AND CAUSE-SPECIFIC MORTALITY IN INFANTS AND CHILDREN - MEMORANDUM FROM A WHO UNICEF MEETING, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 72(5), 1994, pp. 707-713
A joint WHO/UNICEF informal consultation on the ''Measurement of overa
ll and cause-specific mortality in infants and children'' was held in
Geneva on 15-17 December 1992. The participants included physicians, d
emographers, statisticians and programme personnel from different regi
ons. The recommendations were aimed at helping countries and internati
onal organizations to produce more frequent and more reliable data on
overall child mortality and to estimate broad patterns of child mortal
ity by cause of death, especially for ranking the major causes of deat
h and monitoring progress towards the achievement of mortality reducti
on goals of the World Summit for Children. The verbal autopsy method w
as reviewed to assess its potential for use in different situations-su
rveys, longitudinal surveillance, health services and civil registrati
on-and its capacity to provide national estimates of cause of death. D
ocumented national and international experiences and validation studie
s were examined together with other methods already being used. The po
tential of the preceding birth technique and other indirect methods to
estimate mortality in childhood-for use by countries and programmes m
ore frequently and with as much disaggregation as possible-was evaluat
ed.