Mortality Inequality in 1-59 Months Children Across Iranian Provinces: Referring System and Determinants of Death Based on Hospital Records

Background: to determine inequality in mortality in 1-59 monthschildren across iranian provinces focusing on referring system anddeterminants of death.methods: after designing and examining a national questionnaire formortality data collection of children 1-59 months, 40 medical universitieshave been asked to fill in the questionnaires and return to the mainresearcher in the health ministry in 2009.results: mortality in 1-59 months children was unequally distributedacross provinces (universities). the recommended refer was 3466 butonly 1620 patients were referred. the first five important determinants ofdeath were congenital (671 children or 20.9%), accident (547 children or17.1%), pulmonary diseases (370 children or 11.5%), cardiovascular (266children or less than 8.3%), central nervous system (263 children or8.2%), and infectious and parasitic diseases (245 children or 7.6%),respectively.conclusions: our results suggest that inequality in 1-59 monthsmortality based on the hospital records, and specially referring system,needs more attention in iran. in addition, it is advisable to conductprovincially representative surveys to provide recent estimates ofhospital access inequalities and to allow monitoring over time.