scholarly journals In-depth Validation of CHERG’S Verbal Autopsy-Social Autopsy (VASA) Tool for Ascertaining Determinants and Causes of Under-Five Child Mortalities in Karachi, Pakistan.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Bilal Siddiqui ◽  
Chiu Wan Ng ◽  
Wah Yun Low ◽  
Hassan Ahmed ◽  
Khadijah Abid
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Child Mortality ◽  
Verbal Autopsy ◽  
Child Death ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Social Autopsy ◽  
Social Causes ◽  
Mortality Estimates

Abstract Background: Globally, child mortality estimates are more clustered among the developing countries where quality data on estimates and determinants of child mortality are compromised. To achieve sustainability in reducing child mortality estimates, the integrated Verbal Autopsy and Social Autopsy (VASA) tool help in estimating prevalence and assigning medical and social causes and determinants of child survival, especially in the developing countries. A validation study of the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group’s (CHERG) Verbal autopsy/Social Autopsy (VASA) tool has been undertaken for employing in a Karachi VASA Integrated Child Mortality Investigation-ICMI study in its urban slums. Methods: Validity and reliability of the CHERG VASA-tool were tested using face, content, discriminant validation and reliability tests on one hundred randomly selected mothers, with a recent child death event. Data were computed on SPSS (version-21) and R. Results: Testing yielded high I-CVI (>81.43%); high Cronbach's Alpha (0.843); accuracy of between 75% and 100% of the discriminants classifying births to live and stillbirths. The tool showed ICVI (>82.07% and 88.98% respectively) with high accuracy (92% and 97% respectively) for assigning biological and social causes of child deaths respectively. Conclusion: The CHERG VASA questionnaire is valid, reliable, and relevant to the conceptual framework. This valid tool is one of the assets for child health policy as it can assign accurate medical and non-medical causes (pertaining to health-seeking practices) of child mortality cases occurring in Pakistan.

Dynamics of Child Mortality Inequality

2018 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 348-352
Author(s):  
Tom S. Vogl
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Child Mortality ◽  
Child Death ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Mortality Decline ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Household Surveys ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
Mortality Inequality

Half a century of economic research asks how economic inequality evolves during aggregate economic progress. I extend this literature to quantify inequality in the incidence of child death across mothers and study its evolution during aggregate mortality decline. Data from 238 household surveys in 79 developing countries show that as child mortality falls in aggregate, it becomes more unequally distributed across mothers.

Women's Rights Save Lives

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekah Burroway
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Child Mortality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Infant And Child Mortality

Sociologists have long recognized women's empowerment as a key factor in improving development and health in developing countries. Using new data, this study goes beyond the traditionally used indicators of empowerment by highlighting the potential role of women's rights to land, property, and loans in explaining cross-national variation in child health. Results show that land and property rights are associated with lower rates of infant and child mortality across 75 developing countries, net of women's literacy and a variety of controls. Notably, the robustness of the land and property variables is comparable to that of GDP or access to clean water/sanitation. This provides some suggestive evidence that perhaps these aspects of women's empowerment may be just as important as some of the more conventional correlates of child health. However, access to bank loans is not significantly associated with lower infant and child mortality. This is consistent with a growing body of research that questions the efficacy of microfinance and loan programs for poverty reduction, health, and other development outcomes.

Child Saving and Child Spacing in Africa: The Evolution of a Concept

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 765-768
Author(s):  
Robert D. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Maternal And Child Health ◽  
Child Death ◽  
Child Health Services ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Low Visibility ◽  
Child Spacing ◽  
High Level ◽  
And Child Health

In tropical Africa the primordial presence of enormous young child death rates precludes a successful frontal attack on birth rates through specialized programs. Experience in Nigeria indicates that gradual, quiet pressure can influence the power structure to tolerate and eventually espouse child spacing as an integral part of a program of services for child saving. The approach involves four phases: a low visibility start; obtaining high level acceptance; establishment of a federal training center to train cadres for state training programs; and deployment of trained primary care auxiliaries as a local maternal and child health-family planning service. In tropical Africa governmental attitudes toward family planning range from positive policy, to neutrality, to strong opposition. At present most Anglophone countries are favorable. Most Francophone countries are opposed. The general trend is toward a more favorable attitude toward family planning when it is a part of maternal and child health services.

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