[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/sz8n9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Population science implications of the inclusion of stillbirths in demographic estimates of child mortality

Author

Listed:
  • Hathi, Payal
Abstract
Similar factors cause both early neonatal mortality and stillbirth, and most stillbirths are preventable. Yet stillbirths are not counted in commonly used summary measures of mortality, such as life expectancy and child mortality. The bioethics literature has recognized that this is paradoxical because it implies that a population in which many babies are stillborn is equally healthy as one in which those same babies survive. However, the demography literature fails to account for stillbirth despite the field’s primary aim of describing population processes. In this article, I show that current thinking about how to measure mortality mischaracterizes population health challenges and contributes to the neglect of stillbirth measurement. To address these shortcomings, I examine stillbirth data from reproductive calendars in Demographic and Health Surveys across 42 countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. I find that stillbirth undermeasurement is not uniform across places: the places with worse early life health may have poorer measurement of stillbirth than places with better early life health. Through the calculation of “stillbirth-adjusted” infant and neonatal mortality rates, I demonstrate that it is possible to implement population health measures that include stillbirth. Adjusted rates show that a substantial portion of early-life mortality is left out of traditional demographic mortality measures. These findings have implications for population theory, forcing us to reconsider underlying assumptions in demographic measurement. They also allow for a more complete assessment of the health of societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Hathi, Payal, 2022. "Population science implications of the inclusion of stillbirths in demographic estimates of child mortality," SocArXiv sz8n9, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:sz8n9
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/sz8n9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/63643374e9045b0378042914/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/sz8n9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Hill & Yoonjoung Choi, 2006. "Neonatal mortality in the developing world," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 14(18), pages 429-452.
    2. Robert M. Gonzalez & Donna Gilleskie, 2017. "Infant Mortality Rate as a Measure of a Country’s Health: A Robust Method to Improve Reliability and Comparability," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 701-720, April.
    3. John Bongaarts & John B. Casterline, 2018. "From Fertility Preferences to Reproductive Outcomes in the Developing World," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 44(4), pages 793-809, December.
    4. Samuel J. Clark, 2019. "A General Age-Specific Mortality Model With an Example Indexed by Child Mortality or Both Child and Adult Mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(3), pages 1131-1159, June.
    5. Stéphane Helleringer & Li Liu & Yue Chu & Amabelia Rodrigues & Ane Barent Fisker, 2020. "Biases in Survey Estimates of Neonatal Mortality: Results From a Validation Study in Urban Areas of Guinea-Bissau," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(5), pages 1705-1726, October.
    6. Helleringer, Stephane & Liu, Li & Chu, Yue & Rodrigues, Amabelia & Fisker, Ane Baerent, 2020. "Biases in Survey Estimates of Neonatal Mortality: Results from a Validation Study in Urban Areas of Guinea-Bissau," SocArXiv qx2kn, Center for Open Science.
    7. Gupta, Aashish, 2020. "Seasonal variation in infant mortality in India," SocArXiv x4rv7, Center for Open Science.
    8. Jon Pedersen & Jing Liu, 2012. "Child Mortality Estimation: Appropriate Time Periods for Child Mortality Estimates from Full Birth Histories," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-13, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hallie Eilerts & Julio Romero-Prieto & Jeffrey Eaton & Georges Reniers, 2021. "Age patterns of under-5 mortality in sub-Saharan Africa during 1990‒2018: A comparison of estimates from demographic surveillance with full birth histories and the historic record," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(18), pages 415-442.
    2. Gupta, Aashish & Mani, Sneha, 2020. "Routes to improved mortality monitoring: Evidence from the Kerala MARANAM Study," SocArXiv jachq, Center for Open Science.
    3. Laura Schmidt & Mahmoud Elkasabi, 2022. "Accumulating Birth Histories Across Surveys for Improved Estimates of Child Mortality," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(5), pages 2177-2209, October.
    4. Katherine Wilson & Jon Wakefield, 2022. "A probabilistic model for analyzing summary birth history data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(11), pages 291-344.
    5. Jonathan Wakefield & Taylor Okonek & Jon Pedersen, 2020. "Small Area Estimation for Disease Prevalence Mapping," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 88(2), pages 398-418, August.
    6. Muhammad Asif Wazir & Anne Goujon, 2019. "Assessing the 2017 Census of Pakistan Using Demographic Analysis: A Sub-National Perspective," VID Working Papers 1906, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    7. Agnieszka Genowska & Birute Strukcinskiene & Jacek Jamiołkowski & Paweł Abramowicz & Jerzy Konstantynowicz, 2023. "Emission of Industrial Air Pollution and Mortality Due to Respiratory Diseases: A Birth Cohort Study in Poland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-13, January.
    8. Finlay, Jocelyn E., 2021. "Women’s reproductive health and economic activity: A narrative review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Dana Glei & Andres Barajas Paz & Jose Manuel Aburto & Magali Barbieri, 2021. "Mexican mortality 1990‒2016: Comparison of unadjusted and adjusted estimates," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(30), pages 719-758.
    10. Katie Wilson & Jon Wakefield, 2021. "Child mortality estimation incorporating summary birth history data," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1456-1466, December.
    11. Leonardo Piccione & Gianpiero Dalla Zuanna & Alessandra Minello, 2014. "Mortality selection in the first three months of life and survival in the following thirty-three months in rural Veneto (North-East Italy) from 1816 to 1835," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(39), pages 1199-1228.
    12. Michael Spagat, 2010. "Estimating the Human Costs of War: The Sample Survey Approach," HiCN Research Design Notes 14, Households in Conflict Network.
    13. Aburto, José Manuel & di Lego, Vanessa & Riffe, Tim & Kashyap, Ridhi & van Raalte, Alyson & Torrisi, Orsola, 2023. "A global assessment of the impact of violence on lifetime uncertainty," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118196, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Mathias Lerch, 2020. "The emergence and diffusion of birth limitation in urban areas of developing countries," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-014, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    15. Aalok Ranjan Chaurasia, 2023. "Human Development in Districts of India, 2019–2021," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 17(2), pages 219-252, August.
    16. Jamie M. Sommer, 2020. "Corruption and Health expenditure: A Cross-National Analysis on Infant and Child Mortality," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(3), pages 690-717, July.
    17. Monica Alexander & Leontine Alkema, 2018. "Global estimation of neonatal mortality using a Bayesian hierarchical splines regression model," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(15), pages 335-372.
    18. Donela Besada & Kate Kerber & Natalie Leon & David Sanders & Emmanuelle Daviaud & Sarah Rohde & Jon Rohde & Wim van Damme & Mary Kinney & Samuel Manda & Nicholas P Oliphant & Fatima Hachimou & Adama O, 2016. "Niger’s Child Survival Success, Contributing Factors and Challenges to Sustainability: A Retrospective Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, January.
    19. Stéphane Helleringer & Li Liu & Yue Chu & Amabelia Rodrigues & Ane Barent Fisker, 2020. "Biases in Survey Estimates of Neonatal Mortality: Results From a Validation Study in Urban Areas of Guinea-Bissau," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(5), pages 1705-1726, October.
    20. Cortes, Darwin & Gómez, Catalina & Posso, Christian & Suarez, Gabriel, 2023. "Hunting Militias at All Cost: Urban Military Operation and Birth Outcomes," Documentos de Trabajo 20935, Universidad del Rosario.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:sz8n9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.