London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

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3rd release in series
 

Even as obesity reaches epidemic proportions, more than 5 million under fives a year are still dying unnecessarily in developing countries because they are underweight, child health epidemiologists warn today.

The authors of Where and why are ten million children dying every year?, the first paper in a special series on child health which is being launched in the Lancet today identify under-nutrition as an underlying cause in a substantial proportion of all child deaths, and call for a greater focus on developing effective and affordable interventions in those countries most affected.

Children who are mildly underweight are twice as likely to die as children who are better nourished, while the risk of death increases to between five and eight times in moderately to severely underweight children. 'Being underweight puts children at greater risk of mortality from infectious diseases, with an estimated 53% of child deaths a year attributable to being underweight'1, explains Dr Saul Morris of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, one of the authors of the paper.

'Child health epidemiology is an evolving science which is, increasingly, feeding into the public health planning, monitoring and evaluation process', he continues. 'If we are to meet the Millennium Development Goal for Child Survival2, then we need to expand our efforts to identify effective programme interventions to reduce under-nutrition and to develop a greater understanding as to how it co-presents with infectious diseases and other conditions, most notably pneumonia and diarrhoea, which are still the biggest killers of children in the world today.

'Most importantly, planning for health interventions should take place at the national, rather than the regional or sub-regional level, because of the huge variability in causes and rates of child mortality within regions. There's even variation within countries - the under 5 mortality rate in India, for instance, varies from 19 per 1,000 live births in Kerala to 138 per 1000 in Madhya Pradesh, and we need to take that on board and ensure our interventions are tailored to each country's situation'.

If you would like to interview Dr Morris, please contact the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Press Office on 020 7927 2073.

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