Illuminating Child Mortality: Discovering Why Children Die

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Pratima L Raghunathan, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Shabir A Madhi, University of Witwatersrand; Robert F Breiman, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2019-10-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy B - Oxford Open Option C
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciz562
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Clinical Infectious Diseases
• ISSN: 1058-4838
• Volume: 69
• Issue: 4
• Start Page: S257
• End Page: S259
• Grant/Funding Information: This supplement is sponsored by the Emory Global Health Institute and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.; This work was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1126780).
• Keywords: surveillance; Immunology; verbal autopsy; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Infectious Diseases; Microbiology; child mortality; Science & Technology; minimally invasive tissue sampling
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Public Health

Abstract

Current understanding of the causes of under-5 childhood deaths in low- and middle-income countries relies heavily on country-level vital registration data and verbal autopsies. Reliable data on specific causes of deaths are crucial to target interventions more effectively and achieve rapid reductions in under-5 mortality. The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) network aims to systematically describe causes of child death and stillbirth in low- and middle-income countries using minimally invasive tissue sampling. The articles in this supplement introduce the set of foundational epidemiologic, demographic surveillance, social behavioral science, and laboratory methods. Undergirding the CHAMPS surveillance system designed to determine causes of child mortality.