Li Liu

Johns Hopkins University | JHU

Background The mortality pattern from birth to age five is known to vary by underlying cause of mortality, which has been documented in multiple instances. Many countries without high functioning vital registration systems could benefit from estimates of age- and cause-specific mortality to inform health programming, however, to date the causes of...

In order to implement disease-specific interventions in young age groups, policy makers in low- and middle-income countries require timely and accurate estimates of age- and cause-specific child mortality. High quality data is not available in countries where these interventions are most needed, but there is a push to create sample registration sys...

Background: Documentation of the demographic and geographical details of changes in cause-specific neonatal (younger than 1 month) and 1-59-month mortality in India can guide further progress in reduction of child mortality. In this study we report the changes in cause-specific child mortality between 2000 and 2015 in India. Methods: Since 2001,...

Improving the counting of stillbirths and neonatal deaths is important to tracking Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 and improving vital statistics in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the validity of self-reported stillbirths and neonatal deaths in surveys is often threatened by misclassification errors between the two birth outcome...

Background: China has achieved Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce under-5 mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. In this study, we estimated the national and subnational levels and causes of child mortality in China annually from 1996 to 2015 to draw implications for achievement of the SDGs for China and other low-income and middl...

Background Substantial progress in reducing the child mortality rate has been made globally in the last two decades. However, for China, the number of children dying from preventable diseases is still very large. It is important to have regularly updated information on the distribution of causes of death (COD) in children to inform policy and resea...

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa, one-third of all births are small for gestational age (SGA), and 4.4 million children are stunted; both conditions increase the risk of child mortality. SGA has also been shown to increase the risk of stunting. Objective: We tested whether the association between SGA and postneonatal mortality is mediated by stunt...

Background: Despite remarkable progress in the improvement of child survival between 1990 and 2015, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 target of a two-thirds reduction of under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) was not achieved globally. In this paper, we updated our annual estimates of child mortality by cause to 2000-15 to reflect on progress toward...

In the last 5 years, childhood tuberculosis (TB) has received increasing attention from international organisations, national TB programmes and academics. For the first time, a number of different groups are developing techniques to estimate the burden of childhood TB. We review the challenges in diagnosing TB in children and the reasons why cases...

Background: The prevalence of hypertension is known to differ by racial group in adults in the United States (US), but findings in children are scarce and inconsistent. The objective of this study was to assess the racial differences in pediatric hypertension and to explore whether these differences, if any, can be explained by low birth weight (L...

This study introduces how the International Fetal and Newborn Growth Consortium for the 21st Century (INTERGROWTH-21st) international birth weight standards alter our previous understanding and interpretations of fetal growth restriction as represented by small for gestational age (SGA) status. To compare the birth weight distributions of the INTER...

Background Pneumonia and diarrhea are leading causes of death for children under five (U5). It is challenging to estimate the total number of deaths and cause-specific mortality fractions. Two major efforts, one led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the other led by the World Health Organization (WHO)/Child Health Epidem...

Effective interventions in maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH), if achieving high level of population coverage, could prevent most of deaths in children under five years of age. High-quality measurements of MNCH coverage are essential for tracking progress and making evidence-based decisions. MNCH coverage data are mainly collected through fi...

Background: China is increasingly facing the challenge of control of the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. We assessed the epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in China between 1990, and 2010, to improve estimates of the burden of disease, analyse time trends, and inform health policy decisions relevant to Chi...

The recent series of reviews conducted within the Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) addressed epidemiology of the two deadly diseases at the global and regional level; it also estimated the effectiveness of interventions, barriers to achieving high coverage and the main implications for health policy. The aim of this paper is t...

Global under-5 mortality has fallen rapidly from 12 million deaths in 1990, to 6·9 million in 2011; however, this number still falls short of the target of a two-thirds reduction or a maximum of 4 million deaths by 2015. Acceleration of reductions in deaths due to pneumonia and diarrhoea, which together account for about 2 million child deaths ever...

Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the leading infectious causes of childhood morbidity and mortality. We comprehensively reviewed the epidemiology of childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia in 2010-11 to inform the planning of integrated control programmes for both illnesses. We estimated that, in 2010, there were 1·731 billion episodes of diarrhoea (36 millio...

Between 1990 and 2006, China reduced its under-five mortality rate (U5MR) from 64.6 to 20.6 per 1000 live births and achieved the fourth United Nation's Millennium Development Goal nine years ahead of target. This study explores the contribution of social, economic and political determinants, health system and policy determinants, and health progra...

Detailed description of the applied methods for estimating the number and proportion child pneumonia deaths. (DOC)

Differences in the national and regional pneumonia mortality single and multi-cause estimates (Emr: Eastern Mediterranean Region; Eur: Europe Region, Afr: Africa Region; Amr: Americas Region; Sear: South East Asia Region; Wpr: Western Pacific Region; PN: Pneumonia). (DOC)

Distribution of the 81 data points (58 verbal autopsy studies) that were used for the development of the single cause models. (TIF)

Comparison of post-neonatal pneumonia estimates for 122 countries between the single-cause and multi-cause model estimates (as published in Black et al, 2010). (TIF)

National post-neonatal pneumonia number of deaths and mortality rates (VAM, verbal autopsy model; VRM, vital registration model; * Countries that had and HIV ANC score >7. The VAM used did not include and HIV covariate and when populating the model their HIV-free envelopes were used). (DOC)

Pneumonia is the leading cause of child deaths globally. The aims of this study were to: a) estimate the number and global distribution of pneumonia deaths for children 1-59 months for 2008 for countries with low (<85%) or no coverage of death certification using single-cause regression models and b) compare these country estimates with recently pu...

Case definitions of major child causes of death applied in the three Bangladesh VA studies and the standardized case definitions (differences in the case definitions between studies are underscored where applicable).

Cause-specific mortality rates (per 1,000 live births) and uncertainty ranges (in parentheses) in Bangladesh, 1993-1994, 1996-1997, and 2004 (* indicates the change was statistically significantly between 1993-1994 and 2004).

Cause-specific fractions and uncertainty ranges (in parentheses) in Bangladesh, 1993-1994, 1996-1997, and 2004 (* indicates the change was statistically significantly between 1993-1994 and 2004).