Mapping neonatal and under-5 mortality in India

India is one of the world's largest and most populous countries, made up of more than 700 diverse districts. Variations in mortality in the country are known at the macro level, and now the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Child Mortality Collaborators1 have mapped neonatal and under-5 mortality rates from 2000 to 2017 for every district in India, going down to geospatial grids as small as 5 km × 5 km. In The Lancet, the study authors report that the under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) in India decreased from 83·1 deaths (95% uncertainty interval 76·7–90·1) in 2000 to 42·4 deaths (36·5–50·0) per 1000 livebirths in 2017, and the neonatal mortality rate (NMR) decreased from 38·0 deaths (34·2–41·6) to 23·5 deaths (20·1–27·8) per 1000 livebirths.