United Nations Children's Fund

This package contains most of the some computer files you may useful when conducting a survey evaluating 1) the nutritional status of children less than 5 years of age, 2) the nutritional status of women of reproductive age (15 – 49 years), 3) the recent rate and causes of mortality, 4) the reproductive health of women of reproductive age, 5) child and infant breastfeeding practices, 6) micronutrient status of children less than 5 years of age, and 7) mictronutrient status of women of reproductive age. These materials were used in carrying out a survey in Badghis Province in March 2002. UNICEF-Afghanistan and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Action Contre la Faim

Nutrition and mortality survey utilized in Sudan.

BASICS Project

The survey determines biological causes of death, investigates the social context and associated risk factors, gathers information from treatment records and assesses the quality of care outside the home from non-Government health providers.

World Bank

The authors argue that the best way to collect data on adult mortality is probably to combine sample community based health reporting systems and singleround surveys in which respondents are asked about the survival of various relatives. The method ' s main limitation is that it provides rather broad, nonspecific measures of mortality - but these are adequate for allocation of resources, which is likely to be affected only by large differences.

Johns Hopkins University

This paper applies a range of methods to census, registration and survey data for Guatemala for the period from 1981 to 1994. The findings are less than conclusive because of marked errors in the census populations. Methods using intercensal survival perform very poorly, giving rise to results that are hard to interpret. Methods using the distribution of deaths by age and rates of change of the population by age appear to work better, but still give rise to substantially different results. Simulations suggest that a combination of two methods appears to work well. In the Guatemala case, survival of mother appears to over-estimate female adult mortality, whereas survival of siblings appears to underestimate adult mortality. A new method for analyzing intercensal changes in cohort proportions with surviving mother, presented in the paper, gives results broadly consistent with estimates based on adjusted registered deaths.

Save the Children (UK)

Johns Hopkins University

The paper begins with a review of methods for assessing nutritional status, particularly in emergencies; a brief history of the North Korean food crisis (1995–2001), and a review of the available nutritional and health data on the DPRK. The main focus of the paper is on the results of a survey of 2,692 North Korean adult migrants in China. Recognizing certain biases and limitations, the study suggests that sample households have experienced an overall decline in food security, as evidenced by both the decline in government rations from an average of 120 grams per person per day to less than 60 grams per day, and by the increase in the percentage of households relying on foraging or bartering of assets as their principal source of food.

Aid Workers Network

The aim of the initial health assessment is to identify mortality rates, morbidity rates, and health needs and to establish responses, recommendations, and priorities.