DHS_U5M: A flexible SAS macro to calculate childhood mortality estimates and standard errors from birth histories

This SAS macro generates childhood mortality estimates (neonatal, post-neonatal, infant (1q0), child (4q1) and under-five (5q0) mortality) and standard errors based on birth histories reported by women during a household survey. We have made the SAS macro flexible enough to accommodate a range of calculation specifications including multi-stage sampling frames, and simple random samples or censuses. Childhood mortality rates are the component death probabilities of dying before a specific age. This SAS macro is based on a macro built by Keith Purvis at MeasureDHS. His method is described in Estimating Sampling Errors of Means, Total Fertility, and Childhood Mortality Rates Using SAS (www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pdf/OD17/OD17.pdf, section 4). More information about Childhood Mortality Estimation can also be found in the Guide to DHS Statistics (www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pdf/DHSG1/Guide_DHS_Statistics.pdf, page 93). We allow the user to specify whether childhood mortality calculations should be based on 5 or 10 years of birth histories, when the birth history window ends, and how to handle age of death with it is reported in whole months (rather than days). The user can also calculate mortality rates within sub-populations, and take account of a complex survey design (unequal probability and cluster samples). Finally, this SAS program is designed to read data in a number of different formats.