Abbreviated Name:
Infant mortality rate
Indicator Name:
Infant mortality rate (probability of dying between birth and age of 1 year per 1000 live births)
Domain:
Health status / Life expectancy and mortality
Related Terms:
Mortality by age and sex
Definition:
Infant mortality rate is the probability of a child born in a specific year or period dying before reaching the age of one, if subject to age-specific mortality rates of that period. Infant mortality rate is strictly speaking not a rate (i.e. the number of deaths divided by the number of population at risk during a certain period of time) but a probability of death derived from a life table and expressed as rate per 1000 live births.
Measurment Method:
Most frequently used methods using the above-mentioned data sources are as follows: • Civil registration: Number of deaths at age 0 and population for the same age are used to calculate death rate which are then converted into age-specific probability of dying. • Census and surveys: An indirect method is used based on questions to each woman of reproductive age as to how many children she has ever born and how many are still alive. The Brass method and model life tables are then used to obtain an estimate of infant mortality. • Surveys: A direct method is used based on birth history - a series of detailed questions on each child a woman has given birth to during her lifetime. To reduce sampling errors, the estimates are generally presented as period rates, for five or 10 years preceding the survey.
Numerator:
Number of children who died before their first birthday (0-11 months of age)
Denominator
Number of live births (years of exposure)
Estimation method:
The Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality of Estimation (UN IGME) which includes representatives from UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank and the United Nations Population Division, produces trends of infant mortality rates with standardized methodology by group of countries depending on the type and quality of source of data available. For countries with adequate trend of data from civil registration, the calculations of under-five and infant mortality rates are derived from a standard period abridged life table. For countries with survey data, since infant mortality rates from birth histories of surveys are exposed to recall biases, infant mortality is derived from the projection of under-five mortality rates converted into infant mortality rates using the Bayesian B-splines bias-adjusted model. These infant mortality rates have been estimated by applying methods to all Member States to the available data from Member States, that aim to ensure comparability of across countries and time; hence they are not necessarily the same as the official national data. Predominant type of statistics: adjusted and predicted.
Disaggregation:
Age, place of residence, sex, socioeconomic status; Neonatal (0 day; 1-6 days; 6-27 days); Post-neonatal (28 days - <1 year)
Primary data sources:
Civil registration with high coverage
Alternate data sources:
Household surveys, population census
Measurment frequency:
Annual if based on registration system; otherwise, less frequent (3−5 years based on surveys)