Under-Five Mortality Estimation: Assessing Summary Birth History Methods with Microsimulation

Andrea Verhulst, Université Catholique de Louvain
Bruno Masquelier, Université Catholique de Louvain

In order to track progress on the under-five mortality rate for monitoring Millennium Development Goal 4, summary birth histories collected in surveys and censuses are a key source of data in many developing countries. Two kinds of methods for analyzing summary birth histories are now available to users: first, model-based methods derived from the pioneer work of Brass, second, empirically-based methods developed more recently by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The performance of both approaches has not been evaluated extensively and needs further scrutiny. In this paper, we assess them comparatively against gold standard estimates generated by demographic microsimulations.