Global, regional, and national trends in under-5 mortality between 1990 and 2019 with scenario-based projections until 2030: a systematic analysis by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set in 2015 by the UN General Assembly, call for all countries to reach an under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) of at least as low as 25 deaths per 1000 livebirths and a neonatal mortality rate (NMR) of at least as low as 12 deaths per 1000 livebirths by 2030. We estimated levels and trends in under-5 mortality for 195 countries from 1990 to 2019, and conducted scenario-based projections of the U5MR and NMR from 2020 to 2030 to assess country progress in, and potential for, reaching SDG targets on child survival and the potential under-5 and neonatal deaths over the next decade. Levels and trends in under-5 mortality are based on the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) database on under-5 mortality, which contains around 18 000 country-year datapoints for 195 countries—nearly 10 000 of those datapoints since 1990. The database includes nationally representative mortality data from vital registration systems, sample registration systems, population censuses, and household surveys. As with previous sets of national UN IGME estimates, a Bayesian B-spline bias-reduction model (B3) that considers the systematic biases associated with the different data source types was fitted to these data to generate estimates of under-5 (age 0–4 years) mortality with uncertainty intervals for 1990–2019 for all countries. Levels and trends in the neonatal mortality rate (0–27 days) are modelled separately as the log ratio of the neonatal mortality rate to the under-5 mortality rate using a Bayesian model. Estimated mortality rates are combined with livebirths data to calculate the number of under-5 and neonatal deaths. To assess the regional and global burden of under-5 deaths in the present decade and progress towards SDG targets, we constructed several scenario-based projections of under-5 mortality from 2020 to 2030 and estimated national, regional, and global under-5 mortality trends up to 2030 for each scenario. The global U5MR decreased by 59% (90% uncertainty interval [UI] 56–61) from 93·0 (91·7–94·5) deaths per 1000 livebirths in 1990 to 37·7 (36·1–40·8) in 2019, while the annual number of global under-5 deaths declined from 12·5 (12·3–12·7) million in 1990 to 5·2 (5·0–5·6) million in 2019—a 58% (55–60) reduction. The global NMR decreased by 52% (90% UI 48–55) from 36·6 (35·6–37·8) deaths per 1000 livebirths in 1990, to 17·5 (16·6–19·0) in 2019, and the annual number of global neonatal deaths declined from 5