Child Deaths (child + death)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Place, community education, gender and child mortality in North-east India

POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 1 2006
Laishram Ladusingh
Abstract This article examines the relevance of socio-cultural and environmental factors in explaining child mortality in Northeast India, considered to be the most inaccessible region in the country. Using data from the Indian National Family Health Survey, we provide evidence that lack of hygiene in the household and poor women's engagement in physically demanding agriculture based work contributes to higher risk of child mortality. Unlike in other parts of India, female children have an edge over boys in childhood survival and living with paternal grandmother tends to lower the risk of child death in the first five years of life. Community education is found as the dominant factor outside the household to have a significant effect on child mortality. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The preoccupation with thresholds in cases of child death or serious injury through abuse and neglect

CHILD ABUSE REVIEW, Issue 5 2008
Marian Brandon
Abstract Thresholds into and between services emerged as a significant theme in the biennial analysis of cases of child death and serious injury through abuse and neglect ,serious case reviews' carried out in England for the (then) Department for Education and Skills between 2003,05. The preoccupation with thresholds was one of a number of interacting risk factors and many children's cases were on the boundary of services and levels of intervention. In most cases child protection did not come ,labelled as such' which reinforces the need for all practitioners, including those working with adults to be alert to the risks of significant harm. Policy makers should acknowledge that staff working in early intervention are working within the safeguarding continuum and not in a separate sphere of activity. The emotional impact of working with hostility from violent parents and working with resistance from older adolescents impeded engagement, judgement and safeguarding action. In the long term neglect cases that were reviewed, the threshold for formal child protection services was rarely met and some agencies and practitioners coped with feelings of helplessness by adopting the ,start again syndrome'. Adequate resources are essential but not sufficient to redress the problems. Effective and accessible supervision is crucial to help staff to put into practice the critical thinking required to understand cases holistically, complete analytical assessments, and weigh up interacting risk and protective factors. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Reassessing the Insurance Effect: A Qualitative Analysis of Fertility Behavior in Senegal and Zimbabwe

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2003
Thomas LeGrand
A number of prominent demographers have recently reiterated the argument that a lasting mortality decline is a key determinant of the fertility transition. Of the main hypothesized pathways linking fertility to mortality, the one least studied is the insurance hypothesis: the notion that, in high-mortality contexts, people decide to have more children in order to anticipate possible future child deaths and lessen the risks of having too few surviving offspring. In-depth interviews and focus groups from Zimbabwe and Senegal are used to examine this hypothesis and to extend it into a broader theory of reproductive decision making under uncertainty. Whereas insurance strategies are frequent in Zimbabwe and occur in urban Senegal, in the higher-mortality settings,the rural Senegalese site and the recent past described by respondents in Zimbabwe and urban Senegal,deliberate fertility-limitation strategies are rare. The data depict fundamental changes in attitudes, strategies, and behaviors concerning family size over time and, in Senegal, over space. Important reproductive goals and risks extend far beyond numbers of children and mortality. Parents seek to have healthy, successful children for many reasons including companionship, descendants, and old-age support. Diverse investments in child quality (their education, health, etc.) and quantity (numbers of births) are the main means to attain these goals and, less recognized by demographers, are also important ways for parents to manage uncertainty in family-building outcomes; the "classic" insurance mechanism is only one, often minor, aspect of the quantity option. [source]


Context and its significance in identifying ,what works' in child protection

CHILD ABUSE REVIEW, Issue 3 2005
Adrian Barton
Abstract The repetitive nature of the underlying problems with child protection systems identified by many inquiries into child deaths suggests that the ability to transpose successful strategies from one area to another may be contingent on more than a ,technical' approach to best practice. Current policy responses to failing child protection systems are arguably based on an assumption that practices that work in one area may be applied in other areas without reference to the existing base for practice. Drawing on our own experiences in the field, we attempt to explore some methodological issues relevant to the evaluation of service provision and the dissemination of effective practice in interagency working. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Reviewing child deaths,learning from the American experience,

CHILD ABUSE REVIEW, Issue 2 2005
Lisa Bunting
Abstract Current systems for investigating child deaths in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have come under intense scrutiny in recent years and questions have been raised about the accuracy of child death investigations and resulting statistics. Research has highlighted the ways in which multidisciplinary input can contribute to investigative and review processes, a perspective which is further supported by recent UK policy developments. The experience of creating multidisciplinary child death review teams (CDRTs) in America highlights the potential benefits the introduction of a similar system might have. These benefits include improved multi-agency working and communication, more effective identification of suspicious cases, a decrease in inadequate death certification and a broader and more in-depth understanding of the causes of child deaths through the systematic collection and analysis of data. While a lack of funding, regional coordination and evaluation limit the impact of American CDRTs, the positive aspects of this process make it worthwhile, and timely, to consider how such a model might fit within our own context. Current policy developments such as the Home Office review of coroner services, the Children Bill and related Department for Education and Skills (DfES) work on developing screening groups demonstrate that strides have been made in respect of introducing a multidisciplinary process. Similarly, the development of local protocols for the investigation and[sol ]or review of child deaths in England, Wales and Northern Ireland highlights an increased focus on multidisciplinary processes. However, key issues from the American experience, such as the remit of CDRTs[sol ]screening panels, the need for national coordination and the importance of rigorous evaluation, can inform the development of a similar process in the UK. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Mothers' grief following the death of a child

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 1 2001
Hilkka Laakso PhD RN
Mothers' grief following the death of a child Aim of the study.,Research has shown that caring for a dying child is among the hardest and more demanding tasks in nursing, because the staff are forced to manage their heavy work with inadequate skills and experience. This article deals with the findings of a recent study, the purpose of which was to analyse the mother's grief and coping with grief following the death of a child under the age of 7 years. Design.,Data were collected from mothers using a survey (n=91) and an interview (n=50). As the topic was very sensitive ethically and emotionally, survey data were collected first and the mothers were asked to give their consent to taking part in an interview. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. The data were analysed using statistical methods and content analysis. However, only the qualitative part of the study is presented in this article. Findings.,The findings show that nursing staff had skills to support grieving mothers, but that there were many feelings and experiences of grief that remained unidentified by staff. The staff's ability to meet the mothers' individual needs while the child was in hospital and after the child's death was inadequate. The information received from staff was perceived to be insufficient or offensive to mothers. Conclusions.,The development of basic and further education and of various support measures would enable the staff to better cope with their work. Focusing on interactive skills and meeting the patient's individual needs using reflective practice would improve the quality of care. Communication and collaboration between different occupational groups should be promoted, because mothers were dissatisfied with dissemination of information, and ambiguous responsibilities between different occupational groups hampered the acquisition of information. [source]


Predictors of grief following the death of one's child: the contribution of finding meaning,

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 10 2008
Nancy J. Keesee
Abstract This study examined the relative contribution of objective risk factors and meaning-making to grief severity among 157 parents who had lost a child to death. Participants completed the Core Bereavement Items (CBI; Burnett, Middleton, Raphael, & Martinek, 1997), Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG; Prigerson et al., 1995), questions assessing the process and degree of sense-making and benefit-finding, and the circumstances surrounding their losses. Results showed that the violence of the death, age of the child at death, and length of bereavement accounted for significant differences in normative grief symptoms (assessed by the CBI). Other results indicated that the cause of death was the only objective risk factor that significantly predicted the intensity of complicated grief (assessed by the ICG). Of the factors examined in this study, sense-making emerged as the most salient predictor of grief severity, with parents who reported having made little to no sense of their child's death being more likely to report greater intensity of grief. Implications for clinical work are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 64:1,19, 2008. [source]


The Effect on Elderly Parents in Cambodia of Losing an Adult Child to AIDS

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2007
John Knodel
Little systematic quantitative research is available on the parents of adults who become ill and die of AIDS despite their large number and the wide range of adverse consequences. This study, based on survey data from Cambodia, explores economic and social effects on parents in a country characterized by extreme poverty and a substantial AIDS epidemic. Results indicate that parents play a major role during the illness of an adult son or daughter, often sharing living quarters, providing care, and paying for illness-related expenses. These contributions to the societal response to AIDS come at considerable cost to parents at advanced ages. Multivariate analysis suggests lasting negative consequences for parents'economic well-being, and the consequences are more substantial if the adult child's death was from AIDS rather than from other causes. The study found little evidence of stigma associated with losing a grown child to AIDS: reactions from local community members are more likely to be sympathetic and supportive than negative. These results underscore the need for organizations dealing with AIDS to recognize the contributions older persons make in coping with the epidemic and to address the burden it imposes on them. [source]