Demographic

Tables C.4-C.6 in Appendix C can be examined for evidence of the possible occurrence ofthese problems in the mortality data obtained in the 2006-07 SDHS. An unusual pattern in thedistribution of births by calendar years is an indication of omission of children or age displacement. Inthe 2006-07 SDHS, women were asked detailed questions about their births since January 2001. TableC.4 shows that the overall percentage of births for which a month and year of birth was reported is100 percent for both children who have died and children who are alive. However, there is some agedisplacement across this boundary for both living and dead children. Transference is proportionatelyhigher for dead children than living children, and this displacement may affect mortality rates.Underreporting of deaths is usually assumed to be higher for deaths that occur very early ininfancy. Omission of deaths or misclassification of deaths as stillbirths is also common among womenwho have had several children or whose children died a long time ago. In order to assess the impact ofomission on measures of child mortality, two indicators are used: 1) the percentage of deaths thatoccurred under seven days to the number that occurred under one month and 2) the percentage ofneonatal to infant deaths. It is hypothesized that omission will be more prevalent among those whodied immediately after birth than those who lived longer and that it will be more serious for eventsthat took place in the distant past rather than those in the more recent past. Table C.5 shows data onage at death for early infant deaths. Underreporting of early neonatal deaths would result in anunusually low ratio of deaths within the first seven days of life to all neonatal deaths. Early infantdeaths have not been severely underreported in the 2006-07 SDHS survey, as suggested by the highratio of deaths in the first seven days of life to all neonatal deaths (81 percent in the five yearspreceding the survey).Heaping of the age at death on certain digits is another problem that is inherent in mostretrospective surveys. Misreporting of age at death will bias age-specific mortality estimates if the netresult is the transference of deaths between age segments for which the rates are calculated. Forexample, child mortality may be overestimated relative to infant mortality if children who died in thefirst year of life are reported as having died at age one or older. In an effort to minimise misreportingof age at death, interviewers were instructed to record deaths under one month in days and deathsunder two years in months. In addition, they were trained to probe deaths reported at exactly 1 year or12 months to ensure that they had actually occurred at 12 months. The distribution of deaths under 2years during the 20 years prior to the survey by month of death shows that there is some heaping at 3,12, and 18 months of age with corresponding deficits in adjacent months (Table C.6). However,heaping is less pronounced for deaths in the five years preceding the survey, for which the most recentmortality rates are calculated.8.2 LEVELS AND TRENDS IN INFANT AND CHILD MORTALITYTable 8.1 shows the trends in neonatal, postneonatal, infant, child, and under-five mortalityrates for three successive five-year periods preceding the survey. For the most recent five-year periodpreceding the survey, infant mortality is 85 deaths per 1,000 live births, and under-five mortality is120 deaths per 1,000 live births. This means that one in every seven children born in Swaziland diesbefore attaining his or her fifth birthday.108 | Infant and Child Mortality