An Assessment of Changes in Infant and Under-Five Mortality in Demographic and Health Survey Data for Madagascar

Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program Working Paper No. 207

48 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2006

See all articles by Peter Glick

Peter Glick

RAND Corporation

Stephen D. Younger

Tulane University - CEQ Institute

David E. Sahn

Cornell University

Date Written: September 2006

Abstract

Repeated rounds of nationally representative surveys are an important source of information on changes in the welfare of the population. In particular, policymakers and donors in many developing countries rely heavily on the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to provide information on levels and trends in indicators of the health status of the population, including child survival. The reliability of observed trends, however, depends strongly on the comparability across survey rounds of the sampling strategy and of the format of questions and how interviews ask them. In Madagascar, the most recent (2003/4) DHS indicated very sharp declines in rates of infant and under-five mortality compared with the previous survey from 1997. However, retrospective under-one and under-five mortality data in 1997 and 2003/4 for the same calendar years also show large differences, suggesting that this trend may be spurious. We employ a range of descriptive and multivariate approaches to investigate the issue. Despite evidence of significant interviewer recording errors (with respect to date of birth and age at death) in 2003/4, the most likely source of problems is that the two samples differ: comparisons of time-invariant characteristics of households and of women suggests that the later DHS sampled a somewhat wealthier (hence lower mortality) population. Corrections to the data using hazard survival model estimates are discussed. These suggest a much more modest reduction in infant and under-five mortality than indicated by the raw data for the two surveys.

Suggested Citation

Glick, Peter and Younger, Stephen D. and Sahn, David E., An Assessment of Changes in Infant and Under-Five Mortality in Demographic and Health Survey Data for Madagascar (September 2006). Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program Working Paper No. 207, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=924610 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.924610

Peter Glick (Contact Author)

RAND Corporation ( email )

1200 South Hayes Street
Arlington, VA 22202
United States

Stephen D. Younger

Tulane University - CEQ Institute ( email )

6823 St Charles Ave
New Orleans, LA 70118
United States

David E. Sahn

Cornell University ( email )

B16 MVR Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
United States
607-255-8931 (Phone)
607-255-0178 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/des16

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