The new PMC design is here! Learn more about navigating our updated article layout. The PMC legacy view will also be available for a limited time. Federal government websites often end in. The site is secure. Less than 5 years remain before the mark when countries will be evaluated on their achievements for the Millennium Development Goals MDGs. To accelerate the achievement of these goals, focused allocation of resources and high deployment of cost-effective interventions is paramount.
The knowledge of spatial and temporal distribution of diseases is important for health authorities to prioritize and allocate resources. To identify possible significant clusters, we used SatTScan software, and analyzed 2, cases of under-five with , person-years for the period between and Mortality rates for every year were calculated, likewise a spatial scan statistic was used to test for clusters of total under-five mortalities in both space and time.
A number of significant clusters from space, time, and spaceβtime analysis were identified in several locations for a period of 10 years in the Rufiji Demographic Surveillance Site RDSS. These locations show that villages within the clusters have an elevated risk of under-five deaths.
The spatial analysis identified three significant clusters. A spaceβtime cluster of 10 villages for the period between and with a radius of The mortality rates were very high for the years β according to the analysis. The death rates were Total childhood mortality rates calculated for the period of 10 years were During the 10 years of analysis, mortality seemed to decrease in RDSS. The mortality decline should be taken with caution because the Demographic Surveillance System is not statistically representative of the whole population; therefore, inference should not be made to the general population of Tanzania.
The pattern observed could be attributed to demographic and weather characteristics of RDSS. This should provide new insights for further studies and interventions toward reducing under-five mortality. Less than 5 years remain before the mark when countries will be evaluated on their achievements of the Millennium Development Goals MDGs. Globally, there is little progress in reducing child mortality and slow progress has been mainly in sub-Saharan Africa 1.
