A Survival Framework for Estimating Child Mortality Rates using Multiple Data Types

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Bayesian survival framework that integrates multiple data sources to estimate child mortality rates and survival curves over time, providing a unified approach applicable across countries with diverse data quality.

Contribution

It presents a novel Bayesian model that combines various data types into a single survival analysis framework for estimating child mortality and survival curves.

Findings

The framework aligns well with existing estimates for selected countries.

It provides detailed survival curves beyond summary mortality rates.

Applicable to countries with diverse and limited data profiles.

Abstract

Child mortality is an important population health indicator. However, many countries lack high-quality vital registration to measure child mortality rates precisely and reliably over time. Research endeavors such as those by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) and the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study leverage statistical models and available data to estimate child survival summaries including neonatal, infant, and under-five mortality rates. UN IGME fits separate models for each age group and the GBD uses a multi-step modeling process. We propose a Bayesian survival framework to estimate temporal trends in the probability of survival as a function of age, up to the fifth birthday, with a single model. Our framework integrates all data types that are used by UN IGME: household surveys, vital registration, and other pre-processed mortality rates. We demonstrate that our framework is applicable to any country using log-logistic and piecewise-exponential survival functions, and discuss findings for four example countries with diverse data profiles: Kenya, Brazil, Estonia, and Syrian Arab Republic. Our model produces estimates of the three survival summaries that are in broad agreement with both the data and the UN IGME estimates, but in addition gives the complete survival curve.