Child mortality findings from the Million Death Study

In 2005, more than 2.3 million children under the age of 5 years died in India. Unfortunately, the major causes of death are not formally measured in the country. During the last decade, the Registrar General of India (RGI), in conjunction with CGHR, has introduced a form of verbal autopsy called RHIME (Routine, reliable, representative, resampled Household Investigation of Mortality with medical Evaluation) into their Sample Registration Survey (SRS). This mortality survey is part of CGHR’s ongoing Million Death Study (MDS) project.

The study found that three causes accounted for 78% of neonatal (children under 1 month of age) deaths: prematurity and low birth weight, neonatal infections, and birth asphyxia and birth trauma. In children aged 1-59 months, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases accounted for 50% of all deaths in that age group. Nearly 1.5 million child deaths in India in 2005 are attributed to these five preventable causes alone. Furthermore, major differences were found between regions and between genders, with 1-59 month old girls having a higher risk of dying than boys of the same age.

Read the full article here: Causes of neonatal and child mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey

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