Zylbersztejn, A;
Gilbert, R;
Hardelid, P;
(2020)
Preventing child deaths: what do administrative data tell us?
Archives of Disease in Childhood
, 105
(1)
pp. 15-17.
10.1136/archdischild-2019-317135.
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Abstract
The UK has one of the highest child mortality rates in Western Europe: 4 in every 1000 children die before the age of 1 year, compared with 2 per 1000 children in Sweden. Likewise, the mortality rate of children aged 1–14 years in the UK is 10.4/100 000 children compared with 8.3/100 000 in Sweden.1 Since the UK has a universal healthcare system, and comparable levels of per capita incometo Sweden, a substantial proportion of deaths in children in the UK are likely to be preventable. This raises the question of what policies we should prioritise in order to lower child mortality rates in the UK most rapidly. Data on child deaths are crucial to answering this question. In the November 2018 issue of Archives, Garstang,2 in an editorial linked to a paper by Firth et al,3 argues that a national dataset collated from Child Death Overview Panels (CDOPs) will allow us to ‘understand better why children die in the UK and reduce our child mortality’. In this commentary, we compare data collected by CDOPs to mortality data collected via linked civil registration and administrative data systems. We propose that important lessons for preventing child deaths can already be drawn from analyses of mortality records linked to other administrative datasets and at relatively low cost. Targeted use of detailed investigations into the circumstances of child death could be guided by and enhance findings from administrative data, but the priority should be greater use and wider linkage of these data to inform strategies to prevent child deaths.
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