Improving child survival around the globe is key goal of United Nations

Reducing child mortality rates for children under 5 — which in 2004 was 6.5 (per 1,000 children annually) in Latin America and the Caribbean, about 20 in South Asia, and 39 in sub-Saharan Africa — is one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals were established at the beginning of this decade to address the problems of global poverty, health, and sustainability. Targets were set related to these issues, to be achieved by 2015. However, there are concerns at the midway point that the targets will not be achieved.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Washington set out to determine, first, whether programs to improve child nutrition and provide clean water, sanitation, and fuels (three of the MDGs) could also impact the MDG of reducing child mortality; and, second, how the benefits of those interventions varied based on how poor the targeted populations were.

The researchers found that achieving complete coverage of interventions related to nutritional and environmental sustainability MDGs could lead to large reductions in child deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa — the three regions the researchers studied. The biggest reduction would take place in sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate might be reduced by an estimated 31 percent, equivalent to about 1.47 million fewer child deaths each year. In all the regions, the current regional gap toward the MDG child mortality target could be reduced by 30 percent to 48 percent.