Under-5 Child Mortality in India: Need for Evidence-based Focused Interventions

Abstract

India suffers from high mortality of children under the age of five years. Enormous social and economic costs are linked to the high-mortality risk of children. It is critical to examine causal factors underlying high proportion of child deaths (both under-5 and neonatal mortality) on a regular basis and strategize effective interventions to reduce the mortality risk. Given the country’s limited resource-settings and relatively low expenditure on public health care, a more targeted approach to tackling the burden of child mortality may be considered. This article analyses secondary data on social indicators with regard to four key interventions associated with newborn and child health, namely: delivery care, feeding practices, preventive and curative disease control (immunisation, supplementation and inpatient care), and nutritional status. In the light of these data, it examines, more specifically, the situation in five Indian states which carry the highest child mortality risk. It calls for evidence-based state-specific interventions as the strategy to reduce the overall burden of under-5 child deaths.