The impact of vitamin A supplementation on mortality inequalities …

Short Description
Panel (a) compares child deaths by gender in the placebo and vitamin A arms of the trial. Panel (b) compares child deaths by caste. …

Website: heapol.oxfordjournals.org | Filesize: 197kb

Content
The impact of vitamin A supplementation on mortality
inequalities among children in Nepal
DAVID BISHAI,1 SAMIR KUMAR KC,2 HUGH WATERS,3 MICHAEL KOENIG,1 JOANNE KATZ,3 SUBARNA
K KHATRY4 AND KEITH P WEST, JR.3
1Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of
Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA, 2Department of Community Medicine, Institute of Medicine, Maharajgunj,
Kathmandu, Nepal, 3Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of
Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA and 4Nepal Nutrition Intervention Project-Sarlahi, c/o Nepal Eye Hospital,
Kathmandu, Nepal
Objective: This paper examines gender, caste and economic differentials in child mortality in the context
of a cluster-randomized trial of vitamin A distribution, in order to determine whether or not the
intervention narrowed these differentials.
Design: The study involved secondary analysis of data from a placebo-controlled randomized field trial
of vitamin A supplements. The study took place between 1989-1991 in rural Sarlahi District of Nepal,
with 30 059 children age 6 to 60 months. The main outcome measures were differences in mortality
between boys and girls, between highest Hindu castes and others, and between the poorest quintile and
the four other quintiles….