BACKGROUND: More than 2  3 million @entity1 died in India in 2005; however, the major causes of @entity204 have not been measured in the country. We investigated the causes of neonatal and @entity1 mortality in India and their differences by sex and region. METHODS: The Registrar General of India surveyed all @entity204 occurring in 2001-03 in 1  1 million nationally representative homes. Field staff interviewed household members and completed standard questions about events that preceded the @entity204 . Two of 130 physicians then independently assigned a cause to each @entity204 . Cause-specific mortality rates for 2005 were calculated nationally and for the six regions by combining the recorded proportions for each cause in the neonatal @entity204 and @entity204 at ages 1-59 months in the study with population and @entity204 totals from the United Nations. FINDINGS: There were 10,892 @entity204 in neonates and 12,260 in @entity1 aged 1-59 months in the study. When these details were projected nationally, three causes accounted for 78% (0  79 million of 1  01 million) of all neonatal @entity204 : prematurity and low birthweight (0  33 million, 99% CI 0  31 million to 0  35 million), neonatal infections (0  27 million, 0  25 million to 0  29 million), and @entity600 and @entity600 (0  19 million, 0  18 million to 0  21 million). Two causes accounted for 50% (0  67 million of 1  34 million) of all @entity204 at 1-59 months: @entity55 (0  37 million, 0  35 million to 0  39 million) and @entity66 (0  30 million, 0  28 million to 0  32 million). In @entity1 aged 1-59 months, @entity1 in central India had a five-times higher mortality rate (per 1000 livebirths) from @entity55 (20  9, 19  4-22  6) than did @entity1 in south India (4  1, 3  0-5  6) and four-times higher mortality rate from @entity66 (17  7, 16  2-19  3) than did @entity1 in west India (4  1, 3  0-5  5). INTERPRETATION: Five avoidable causes accounted for nearly 1  5 million @entity1 @entity204 in India in 2005, with substantial differences between regions and sexes. Expanded neonatal and intrapartum care, case management of @entity294 and @entity55 , and addition of new vaccines to immunisation programmes could substantially reduce @entity1 @entity204 in India. FUNDING: US National Institutes of Health, International Development Research Centre, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, and US Fund for UNICEF.

Causes of neonatal and XXXX mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['children', 'boys', 'girls', 'child'] @entity66 :: ('MESH:D004194', 'Disease') :: ['diarrhoeal diseases', 'diarrhoeal disease'] @entity55 :: ('MESH:D011014', 'Disease') :: ['pneumonia'] @entity294 :: ('MESH:D003967', 'Disease') :: ['diarrhoea'] @entity600 :: ('MESH:D000014', 'Disease') :: ['birth asphyxia', 'birth trauma'] @entity204 :: ('MESH:D003643', 'Disease') :: ['death', 'deaths']
@entity1 :: (9606,Species) :: ['child']
