Research Predicts Global Child Mortality To 2015, Australia

Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 04 Oct 2007 - 5:00 PDT

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Research by an international health team, including a University of Queensland academic, shows the rate of decline of global child mortality has not improved from three decades ago.

In an article published in The Lancet last month, UQ School of Population Health's Professor Alan Lopez analysed current and past data to create a more accurate child mortality forecast to 2015.

Information on 172 countries and data on child mortality between birth and age five was analysed.

"Child mortality is an important measure of health and development," Professor Lopez said.

"Sound measurement is needed so we can learn from successes and identify countries where extra efforts are needed.

"As performance-related disbursement by global-health initiatives gains momentum, robust measurement of under-five mortality will take on ever greater importance for development assistance."

The research assisted in gathering more comprehensive and accurate child mortality data and helps to assess whether the global community can realistically achieve its stated Millennium Development Goal 4.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were agreed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 with the co-operation of almost 190 countries.

MDG 4 aims to reduce child mortality of under-fives by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. In some countries, one child in 11 dies before its fifth birthday and on a global level, nearly 10 million young children die each year, mostly from preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea and malaria.

A team of high-profile international academics put the research together, including Professor Lopez and University of Washington's Professor Christopher Murray.

Professors Lopez and Murray have worked together on a number of high-profile projects with important implications for global public health. In 1996, they published the seminal Global Burden of Disease Study.

The University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia

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