Causes of Death Among Children under Five in Bangladesh

Abstract

Millions of children worldwide suffer and die from conditions for which effective interventions exist. While there is ample evidence regarding these diseases, there is a dearth of information on the causes of under-five mortality in developing countries with usually poor health registration systems. The study used a cross-sectional design with a two-stage stratified sample of 18, 000 residential households to analyze the verbal autopsy dataset in the 2011 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. Causes of under-five mortality disaggregated by age, residence and healthcare seeking practices were identified. A total of 490 children died, among which 333 were neonates and the remaining 157 were children aged 29 days to 59 months. Out of the 17 leading causes of death, the majority of deceased children suffered from pneumonia, resulting in 12.9% neonatal deaths and 42% deaths in children aged 29 days to 59 months. Pneumonia also contributed to the largest proportion of deaths in most of the country’s administrative divisions. The greatest proportion of neonatal deaths around 76% occurred at home in rural areas, as for children aged 29 days to 59 months, most deaths took place at home for both urban and rural areas (67.6% and 32.4% respectively). Prior to death, almost all under-five children sought some sort of treatment; if not from formal healthcare facilities. Despite Bangladesh’s achievements in reducing under-five child mortality rates, the country needs to continue strengthening health systems to reduce preventable, infectious and non-infectious diseases.