Mortality Attributable to Nutritional Deficiencies among Iranian Children under the Age of Five at National and Subnational Level: 1995–2015

Under-five mortality is considered an indicator of population well-being and health equality in societies. Under-five mortality caused by nutritional deficiencies is a public health concern in developing countries. In this study, we aimed to report the trend and mortality rate of nutritional deficiencies from 1995 to 2015 in children aged under five years.

In this study, we used the death registration system (DRS) data to estimate age- and sex-specific nutritional deficiency mortality rates at national and sub-national levels in Iran from 1995 to 2015. The Iranian DRS used the 10th revision of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) but we report our results based on Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) study codes. We used the average annual percent change (AAPC) to quantify trend in under-five mortality rate attributable to nutritional deficiencies from 1995 to 2015.

At national level, mortality rates in both sexes were 8.53 (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 7.69–9.47), 1.04 (0.86–1.36), and 0.37 (95% UI: 0.28–0.57) per 100,000 in 1995, 2005, and 2015, respectively. AAPC was estimated between 1995 and 2015. At sub-national level, the highest and lowest mortality rates across provinces ranged from 17.7 per 100 000 in 1995 to 1.1 per 100 000 in 2015. In the latest years, protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) was the most frequent cause of mortality among other nutritional deficiencies.

The results show a substantial reduction in terms of mortality caused by nutritional deficiencies at national, as well as provincial, level among children under-five years of age.