L'évolution des causes de décès d'enfants en Afrique : une étude de cas au Sénégal avec la méthode d'autopsie verbale

Desgrées Du Loû (Annabel), Pison (Gilles), Samb (Badara), Trape (Jean-François.). - Cause- specific Mortality of African Children. A Case Study in Senegal Based on the « Verbal Autopsy » Approach In countries in which the sick are rarely examined by a physician and where medical records often do not include information on the cause of death, other sources must be used to obtain this information. A method called « verbal autopsy » which makes it possible for medically unqualified persons to collect information on cause of death has been used in several less developed countries. After each death, a standardized questionnaire is administered to the families involved which contains questions on the symptoms and history of the illness which resulted in the death. This method was applied to all deaths of children less than five years old which occurred in the Bandafassi area of Eastern Senegal between 1984 and 1993. In this area a population of some 8 000 individuals has been studied during the last 20 years, using demographic survey techniques. Although the proportion of cases for which information on cause of death is not available (30 to 40 per cent of those sampled), the method helps to determine the principal developments in mortality linked to demographic or climatic factors (sex, season of death). As these surveys were taken each year, the results provide an insight into changes over time of the most significant factors and make it possible to assess the success of existing health programmes and suggest directions for future surveys.