Moving from Malaria Burden Reduction toward Elimination: An Evaluation of Mass Drug Administration in Southern Province, Zambia.

From December 2014 to February 2016, a cluster randomized controlled trial was carried out in 60 health facility catchment areas along Lake Kariba in Zambia's Southern Province. The trial sought to evaluate the impact of four rounds of a mass drug administration (MDA) intervention with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DHAP) or focal MDA with DHAP at the household level compared with a control population that received the standard of care. This study was the first randomized controlled trial with DHAP for MDA in sub-Saharan Africa and was conducted through a collaboration between the National Malaria Elimination Programme in the Zambian Ministry of Health, the PATH Malaria Control and Elimination Partnership in Africa, and the Center for Applied Malaria Research and Evaluation at Tulane University.

Impact of traffic, poverty and facility ownership on travel time to emergency care in Nairobi, Kenya.

Background: In many low and middle-income countries (LMICs), timely access to emergency healthcare services is limited. In urban settings, traffic can have a significant impact on travel time, leading to life-threatening delays for time-sensitive injuries and medical emergencies. In this study, we examined travel times to hospitals in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the largest and most congested cities in the developing world.

Mapping under-5 and neonatal mortality in Africa, 2000-15: a baseline analysis for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Background: During the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era, many countries in Africa achieved marked reductions in under-5 and neonatal mortality. Yet the pace of progress toward these goals substantially varied at the national level, demonstrating an essential need for tracking even more local trends in child mortality. With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, which established ambitious targets for improving child survival by 2030, optimal intervention planning and targeting will require understanding of trends and rates of progress at a higher spatial resolution.

Child and Adolescent Health From 1990 to 2015: Findings From the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2015 Study.

Importance: Comprehensive and timely monitoring of disease burden in all age groups, including children and adolescents, is essential for improving population health.

Objective: To quantify and describe levels and trends of mortality and nonfatal health outcomes among children and adolescents from 1990 to 2015 to provide a framework for policy discussion.

Evidence Review: Cause-specific mortality and nonfatal health outcomes were analyzed for 195 countries and territories by age group, sex, and year from 1990 to 2015 using standardized approaches for data processing and statistical modeling, with subsequent analysis of the findings to describe levels and trends across geography and time among children and adolescents 19 years or younger.

Mapping Plasmodium falciparum Mortality in Africa between 1990 and 2015.

Background: Malaria control has not been routinely informed by the assessment of subnational variation in malaria deaths. We combined data from the Malaria Atlas Project and the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate malaria mortality across sub-Saharan Africa on a grid of 5 km from 1990 through 2015.

Methods: We estimated malaria mortality using a spatiotemporal modeling framework of geolocated data (i.

Under-5 mortality in 2851 Chinese counties, 1996-2012: a subnational assessment of achieving MDG 4 goals in China.

Background: In the past two decades, the under-5 mortality rate in China has fallen substantially, but progress with regards to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 at the subnational level has not been quantified. We aimed to estimate under-5 mortality rates in mainland China for the years 1970 to 2012.

Methods: We estimated the under-5 mortality rate for 31 provinces in mainland China between 1970 and 2013 with data from censuses, surveys, surveillance sites, and disease surveillance points.

Changes in health in England, with analysis by English regions and areas of deprivation, 1990-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013.

Background: In the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 (GBD 2013), knowledge about health and its determinants has been integrated into a comparable framework to inform health policy. Outputs of this analysis are relevant to current policy questions in England and elsewhere, particularly on health inequalities. We use GBD 2013 data on mortality and causes of death, and disease and injury incidence and prevalence to analyse the burden of disease and injury in England as a whole, in English regions, and within each English region by deprivation quintile.