Measuring the burden of premature mortality in Pakistan: use of sentinel surveillance systems.
BACKGROUND
In developing countries, finding valid and reliable data is a great challenge. The Federal Bureau of Statistics in Pakistan maintains a surveillance system that records vital events. Results are reported as the Pakistan Demographic Survey (PDS).


METHODS
The adjusted mortality data from PDS-1997 was used to estimate the burden of premature mortality using the healthy life year (HeaLY) methodology.


RESULTS
The burden of premature mortality for Pakistan was 367 HeaLYs lost per 1000 population. More than half of the HeaLYs are being lost due to infection, maternal and perinatal conditions, and malnutrition.


CONCLUSIONS
In the absence of a system maintaining reliable information regarding vital events, PDS provides a good alternate source of such information that can be used to aid policy making for health care and future research.
Hyder
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AA
Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St., Suite E-8132 Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. ahyder@jhsph.edu
Wali
S A
SA
Ghaffar
A
A
Masud
T I
TI
Hill
K
K
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D010154:Pakistan / Q000453:epidemiology; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance