Estimating the Death Number of Children under Age 5 by Capture-recapture Methods / 中国慢性病预防与控制

ABSTRACT

Objective To estimate the death number of children under age 5 in Linzhou city during 2004 to 2005 using the capture-recapture method, and to evaluate the integrality of data about the children death report in all death cause registry. Methods The data of children death were collected from sources of registry office, village symposium for the 3rd national death cause survey and police registries. Cases in every source were matched on the name, sex, age, date of death, cause of death and resident address. To fit for dependencies and heterogeneities between three sources, a log-linear model in stratified age and gender was used to estimate the death number of children which did not appear in three sources. Results It was reported that death number of children under age 5 was 359 and the mortality was 2.16% for combined three sources; but from the registry office, the number and mortality were 291 and 1.75%, respectively. The capture-recapture method estimated that the number of death was 398 and the mortality was 2.39%. Under-reporting rates of registry and aggregate database were 26.9% and 9.8%. Female deaths were more likely to go unreported. Under-reporting rates of registry got higher with the decrease of the age at death. Conclusion Registry office or aggregated database underestimated the death number of children under age 5. On the base of data which were collected from police, village and registry, using the capture-recapture method can adjust the death number of children.