Mikkel Oestergaard and colleagues develop annual estimates for neonatal mortality rates and neonatal deaths for 193 countries for 1990 to 2009, and forecasts into the future.

No abstract

Kenneth Hill and colleagues provide an introductory overview of how the latest United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation estimates were produced, summarizes the key findings of these estimates and describe current methodology and recent methodological innovations.

Mortality estimates for many populations are derived using model life tables, which describe typical age patterns of human mortality. We propose a new system of model life tables as a means of improving the quality and transparency of such estimates. A flexible two-dimensional model was fitted to a collection of life tables from the Human Mortality Database. The model can be used to estimate full life tables given one or two pieces of information: child mortality only, or child and adult mortality. Using life tables from a variety of sources, we have compared the performance of new and old methods. The new model outperforms the Coale-Demeny and UN model life tables. Estimation errors are similar to those produced by the modified Brass logit procedure. The proposed model is better suited to the practical needs of mortality estimation, since both input parameters are continuous yet the second one is optional.

Goals. The authors estimated the incidence and safety of induced abortion worldwide and by region, for 2003, the year with the most recent data for these estimates. Trends in safe and unsafe abortion were also assessed since 1995, the year when the first estimates were made.Safe abortions were defined as those that met the legal and medical requirements in those countries where it is legally permitted. Unsafe abortions were those done either by unskilled people, or in a situation that did not meet minimal medical standards, or both regardless of whether the country from which the data were reported had restrictive or liberal abortion laws. Reports from official national reporting systems, common in those countries in which abortion is legally available, and published studies were examined for worldwide and regional incidences of safe abortions. Unsafe abortion rates in 2003 were estimated from a variety of hospital data, surveys, and published studies. To calculate the total and safe and unsafe abortion rates, the denominator used was an estimate of the number of women of reproductive age (15-44 y) minus the number of births in 2003. To calculate the number of pregnancies that end in operative abortion, the authors estimated the numbers of pregnancies as the number of live births minus medically induced abortions and spontaneous pregnancy losses, which were estimated by a model derived from previous clinical studies. Geographic regions were based on the listing of the United Nations: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern America, and Oceania, with their appropriate subregions.In 1995, an estimated 46 million induced abortions occurred compared with 42 million in 2003. The abortion rate was 35/1000 women in 1995 compared with 29/1000 women in 2003. The abortion rates are estimated and not precise; however, data collection, especially from Africa, has improved. The decline was greater in developed regions than in developing countries. The greatest decline in developed regions was in Eastern Europe (90/1000 women in 1995, 44/ 1000 in 2003). Abortion rates declined slightly in Oceania and negligibly in Canada and the United States. In developing countries, although the total number of abortions changed little from 35.5 million to 35.0 million in 1995 and 2005, respectively, the rate fell from 34 to 29/1000 (B15%). When analyzed by region, abortion rates decreased in Africa, Asia, and Latin America/Caribbean. Asia accounted for >50% of the world's abortions (26.4 million) in 2003 of which 8.6 million were in China. In 2003, almost half of all worldwide abortions were unsafe. In developed regions, 92% were safe, but in developing regions, 55% were unsafe as 87% of all unsafe abortions in 2003 occurred in developing countries. The abortion rates per 1000 women were similar for Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America/Caribbean, but lower in northern America and Oceania, and lowest in Western Europe. In 2003, the number of abortions for every 100 live births was about 31 worldwide; safe and unsaf...