Afghanistan Mortality Survey 2010 - Measure DHS

ADULT MORTALITY 6For several decades, cross-sectional household surveys have been used to provide reliableestimates of childhood mortality rates. More recently, however, as the demographic and epidemiologicaltransitions evolve, and as vital registration systems continue to lag in quality and completeness, there isincreasing demand in many countries for reliable adult mortality estimates from national householdsurveys.Estimates of adult mortality from a household survey can come from a variety of responses. Inthe AMS 2010, three types of responses are used. The respondent to the Household Questionnaire wasasked about all deaths to persons who were household members during the five years preceding theinterview. The respondent to the Woman’s Questionnaire was asked about the survival of all her brothersand sisters that were born to her mother (known as a sibling history). Using each of these sources, directestimates of adult mortality are calculated. Additionally, the household respondent was asked about thesurvival of the birth mother and birth father of each household member. This information can be used todetermine adult mortality levels indirectly by making use of patterns of mortality incorporated in modellife tables. All three information sources can provide estimates of adult mortality by age and sex; however,they vary in the date to which the resulting rates apply. In an assessment of data quality, results from thedirect and indirect estimates in the AMS 2010 are compared with each other as well as with otherestimates of adult mortality in Afghanistan and in the region.In this chapter, several measures of mortality are presented:• Age-specific mortality rates (ASMR): the total number of deaths per year per 1,000 people ofa given age, or age group• Adult mortality rate ( 45 q 15 ): the probability of a 15-year old dying by the 60 th birthday• Reproductive age mortality ( 35 q 15 ): the probability of a 15-year old dying by the 50 th birthday.Other common measures of mortality also presented in this chapter are as follows:• Crude death rate (CDR): the total number of deaths per year per 1,000 people• Life expectancy at birth (e 0 ): the average number of years to be lived by a group of peopleborn in the same year, if mortality at each age remains constant.Household rosters provide information on all usual members of the household and on formermembers who died in the five years prior to the survey. This information provides mortality estimates thatcorrespond to the most recent five-year period, approximately mid-2005 to mid-2010 (which roughlycorresponds to the years 1384-1389 in the Afghan calendar).Information for indirect estimates is derived from two simple questions asked of every member inthe household: the survival status of the biological mother and the biological father. Information from thissource provides historical estimates that extend back 20 years.To identify potential data quality issues related to adult mortality, an initial assessment of thecompleteness of household death data was done by applying the Brass Growth Balance Method (Brass,1975) and by comparing estimates between reporting sources within the AMS 2010 (householdAdult Mortality | 105