223.686.11 CHILD AND PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE TROPICS

Introduces students to the major global causes of child mortality and the strategies and interventions to reduce child mortality. Specific topics include malaria, HIV, measles, pneumonia, diarrhea, neonatal disorders and nutritional deficiencies. Additional topics may include maternal mortality, eye diseases, demography and anthropometry. A specific focus, and a theme emphasized through the different lectures, is the tension and balance between horizontal approaches to child survival, such as Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), and vertical programs such as disease eradication programs. Students discuss several papers published as part of the Lancet Child Survival and Lancet Neonatal Survival series, and gain hands-on experience applying different child survival strategies using the Lives Saved Tool (LiST).

At the end of the course, students should be able to: 1) list the major global causes of child mortality; 2) describe interventions to reduce mortality from each of the major causes; 3) explain the role of undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies in child morbidity and mortality; 4) describe advantages and disadvantages of horizontal and vertical child survival programs; and 5) list major challenges to reducing global child mortality.