Child Mortality in the Developing World

This article reexamines an important and controversial issue relating to the effect of current economic conditions and public health programs on trends in child mortality in the developing world. Several observers in the 1980s have suggested that there has been a major slowdown in the pace of mortality decline because living standards are not improving very rapidly and more recently because of structural-adjustment policies designed to cope with deteriorating economic conditions. The authors find little basis for the conclusion that mortality decline has slowed in general. On the other hand the effects of declining rates of economic growth and of structural-adjustment policies on mortality if they occur take more time to become apparent. In addition there is little evidence to support the notion that public health interventions merely change the causes or delay the occurrence of child deaths rather than actually prevent them. (authors)