Abbreviated Name:
Under- five mortality rate
Indicator Name:
Under- five mortality rate (probability of dying by age 5 per 1000 live births)
Domain:
Health status / Life expectancy and mortality
Related Terms:
Mortality by age and sex
Definition:
The probability of a child born in a specific year or period dying before reaching the age of five, if subject to age-specific mortality rates of that period. Under-five mortality rate as defined here is strictly speaking not a rate (i.e. the number of deaths divided by the number of population at risk during a certain period of time) but a probability of death derived from a life table and expressed as rate per 1000 live births.
Measurment Method:
Data from civil registration: The number of live births and the number of under-five deaths are used to calculate age-specific rates. This system provides annual data. Data from household surveys: Calculations are based on full birth history, whereby women are asked for the date of birth of each of their children, whether the child is still alive, and if not the age at death. The most frequently used methods using the above-mentioned data sources are as follows: Civil registration: Number of deaths at age 0 and population of the same age are used to calculate death rates which are then converted into age-specific probability of dying. Census and surveys: An indirect method is used based on questions to each woman of reproductive age as to how many children she has ever given birth to and how many are still alive. The Brass method and model life tables are then used to obtain an estimate of infant mortality. Surveys: A direct method is used based on birth history – a series of detailed questions on each child a woman has given birth to during her lifetime. To reduce sampling errors, the estimates are often presented as period rates for five years preceding the survey. A synthetic cohort method developed by the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) is used to compute period rates.
Numerator:
Number of deaths among children aged 0–4 years (0–59 months of age), broken down by age groups.
Denominator
Number of live births (person-years of exposure).
Estimation method:
The Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality of Estimation which includes representatives from UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank and the United Nations Population Division, produces trends of under-five mortality with standardized methodology by group of countries depending on the type and quality of source of data available. For countries with adequate trend of data from civil registration, the calculations of under-five and infant mortality rates are derived from a standard period abridged life table. For countries with survey data, under-five mortality rates are estimated using the Bayesian B-splines bias-adjusted model. See the Estimation methods link for details. These under-five mortality rates have been estimated by applying methods to all Member States to the available data from Member States that aim to ensure comparability of across countries and time; hence they are not necessarily the same as the official national data. Predominant type of statistics: adjusted and predicted.
Disaggregation:
Place of residence, sex, socioeconomic status (Also: by cause, including pneumonia or diarrhea)
Primary data sources:
Civil registration with complete coverage
Alternate data sources:
Household surveys, population census
Measurment frequency:
Annual