Measuring the burden of premature mortality in Pakistan: Use of sentinel surveillance systems

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

6-1-2005

Journal

Public Health

Volume

119

Issue

6

DOI

10.1016/j.puhe.2004.08.017

Keywords

Burden of disease; Healthy life years (HeaLYs); Mortality; Pakistan

Abstract

Introduction: In developing countries, finding valid and reliable data is a great challenge. The Federal Bureau of Statistics in Pakistan maintains a surveillance system that records vital events. Results are reported as the Pakistan Demographic Survey (PDS). Methods: The adjusted mortality data from PDS-1997 was used to estimate the burden of premature mortality using the healthy life year (HeaLY) methodology. Results: The burden of premature mortality for Pakistan was 367 HeaLYs lost per 1000 population. More than half of the HeaLYs are being lost due to infection, maternal and perinatal conditions, and malnutrition. Conclusion: In the absence of a system maintaining reliable information regarding vital events, PDS provides a good alternate source of such information that can be used to aid policy making for health care and future research. © 2004 The Royal Institute of Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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