Background Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia contributed 81% of 5•9 million under-5 deaths and 77% of 2•6 million stillbirths worldwide in 2015. Vital registration and verbal autopsy data are mainstays for the estimation of leading causes of death, but both are non-specific and focus on a single underlying cause. We aimed to provide granular data on the contributory causes of death in stillborn fetuses and in deceased neonates and children younger than 5 years, to inform child mortality prevention efforts. Methods The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) Network was established at sites in seven countries (

Despite reductions over the past 2 decades, childhood mortality remains high in low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In these settings, children often die at home, without contact with the health system, and are neither accounted for, nor attributed with a cause of death. In addition, when cause of death determinations occur, they often use nonspecific methods. Consequently, findings from models currently utilized to build national and global estimates of causes of death are associated with substantial uncertainty. Higher-quality data would enable stakeholders to effectively target interventions for the leading causes of childhood mortality, a critical component to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by eliminating preventable perinatal and childhood deaths. The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) Network tracks the causes of under-5 mortality and stillbirths at sites in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through comprehensive mortality surveillance, utilizing minimally invasive tissue sampling (MITS), postmortem laboratory and pathology testing, verbal autopsy, and clinical and demographic data. CHAMPS sites have established facility- and community-based mortality notification systems, which aim to report potentially eligible deaths, defined as under-5 deaths and stillbirths within a defined catchment area, within 24–36 hours so that MITS can be conducted quickly after death. Where MITS has been conducted, a final cause of death is determined by an expert review panel. Data on cause of death will be provided to local, national, and global stakeholders to inform strategies to reduce perinatal and childhood mortality in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Mortality surveillance and cause of death data are instrumental in improving health, identifying diseases and conditions that cause a high burden of preventable deaths, and allocating resources to prevent these deaths. The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) network uses a standardized process to define, assign, and code causes of stillbirth and child death (<5 years of age) across the CHAMPS network. A Determination of Cause of Death (DeCoDe) panel composed of experts from a local CHAMPS site analyzes all available individual information, including laboratory, histopathology, abstracted clinical records, and verbal autopsy findings for each case and, if applicable, also for the mother. Using this information, the site panel ascertains the underlying cause (event that precipitated the fatal sequence of events) and other antecedent, immediate, and maternal causes of death in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision and the World Health Organization death certificate. Development and use of the CHAMPS diagnosis standards—a framework of required evidence to support cause of death determination—assures a homogenized procedure leading to a more consistent interpretation of complex data across the CHAMPS network. This and other standardizations ensures future comparability with other sources of mortality data produced externally to this project. Early lessons learned from implementation of DeCoDe in 5 CHAMPS sites in sub-Saharan Africa and Bangladesh have been incorporated into the DeCoDe process, and the implementation of DeCoDe has the potential to spur health systems improvements and local public health action.