Decreasing child mortality, spatial clustering and decreasing disparity in North‐Western Burkina Faso

Abstract

Summary Within relatively small areas, there exist high spatial variations of mortality between villages. In rural Burkina Faso, with data from 1993 to 1998, clusters of particularly high child mortality were identified in the population of the Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS), a member of the INDEPTH Network. In this paper, we report child mortality with respect to temporal trends, spatial clustering and disparity in this HDSS from 1993 to 2012. Poisson regression was used to describe village‐specific child mortality rates and time trends in mortality. The spatial scan statistic was used to identify villages or village clusters with higher child mortality. Clustering of mortality in the area is still present, but not as strong as before. The disparity of child mortality between villages has decreased. The decrease occurred in the context of an overall halving of child mortality in the rural area of Nouna HDSS between 1993 and 2012. Extrapolated to the Millennium Development Goals target period 1990–2015, this yields an estimated reduction of 54%, which is not too far off the aim of a two‐thirds reduction.

A Two-Center Randomized Trial of an Additional Early Dose of Measles Vaccine: Effects on Mortality and Measles Antibody Levels

“…The mortality has fallen markedly in both sites over the past years [24,25]. Though this is certainly a celebratory finding, it meant that we had only half the deaths we anticipated in the study.…”

Geographical variation in the association of child, maternal and household health interventions with under-five mortality in Burkina Faso

“…For example, the DHS 2010 data showed that the U5MR in the region of Sahel was four times higher than that of Centre-Est [6]. In the rural district of Nouna, the U5MR declined by more than 50% during the last 25 years, however strong disparities in mortality have been observed within the district, which are likely to be related to disparities in risk factors and coverage of health interventions [10]. Even though the coverage of child and maternal interventions has increased globally at national level, there are large regional disparities within the country.…”

Situating mobile health: a qualitative study of mHealth expectations in the rural health district of Nouna, Burkina Faso

“…Despite significant improvements [45, 46], high maternal mortality rates (341 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births) remain a major public health challenge in Burkina Faso. This is particularly the case in rural areas, in which most of the country’s 17 million inhabitants live.…”