- Name
- Under-five mortality ratio (SDG 3.2.1)
- Indicator purpose
- The purpose of this indicator is to reflect access of children and communities to basic health interventions such as vaccination, medical treatment of infectious diseases, and adequate nutrition.
- Abstract
- Under-five mortality is the probability of a child born in a specific year or period dying before reaching the age of 5 years, if subject to the age-specific mortality rates of that period, expressed per 1,000 live births.
- Contact organization / person
- Ministry of Health (MOH); Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)
- Unit of measure
- Mortality rates of that period expressed per 1,000 live births.
- Other characteristics
- Mortality rates among young children are a key output indicator for child health and well-being, and, more broadly, for social and economic development. The under-five mortality rate is a closely watched public health indicator because it reflects the access of children and communities to basic health interventions such as vaccination, medical treatment of infectious diseases and adequate nutrition.
- Classification used
- Under-five mortality is the probability of a child born in a specific year or period dying before reaching the age of 5 years. The under-five mortality rate as defined here 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 a rate per 1,000 live births.
- Disaggregation
- The common disaggregation for mortality indicators includes disaggregation by sex, age (neonatal, infant, child), wealth quintile, residence, and mother’s education. Disaggregated data are not always available. Disaggregation by geographic location is usually at regional level, or the minimum provincial level for survey or census data. Data from well-functioning vital registration systems can provide further geographical breakdowns.
- Key statistical concepts
- The UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) estimates are derived from national data from censuses, surveys or vital registration systems. The UN IGME applies the Bayesian B-splines bias-reduction model to empirical data to derive trend estimates of under-five mortality for all countries.
- Recommended uses
- Associated line ministries should invest in the health workforce and in research infrastructure and to support policy actions towards increasing interventions such as vaccination, medical treatment of infectious diseases and adequate nutrition.
- Other comments
- All the metadata shown was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.
