Childhood mortality estimated from reports on previous births given by mothers at the time of a maternity: preceding-births technique.

PIP: This paper demostrates that, by using the Preceding-Births technique (Brass 1969), data can be collected to determine indices of the most recent childhood mortality using a totally different approach independent of the age of the mother reporting on the survivorship of previous children. This method is particularly simple since it requires only 1 question on the registration or notification form: is your last child still alive? No complex analysis and no dependence on other data sources or model life tables are necessary. An advantage of this method is the low % of selection bias. These techniques are concerned with the limited use of only that part of the maternity history data concerning mortality of recent births. Their use is recommended particularly for monitoring trends and evaluating intervention. In the interim before full registration exists in less developed countries, this is a valuable and viable means of estimating childhood mortality. Model tables describe distributions of intervals between live births reported from Colombia, Italy, USA, England and Wales; mortality schedules taken from African standards; and an estimation of proportion dead by the Preceding-Births technique in the Solomon Islands.^ieng