Practice of death surveillance and response for maternal, newborn and child health: A framework and application to a South African health district

Abstract

To assess the functioning of maternal, perinatal, neonatal and child death surveillance and response (DSR) mechanisms at a health district level.A framework of elements covering analysis of causes of death, and processes of review and response was developed and applied to the smallest unit of coordination (subdistrict) to evaluate DSR functioning. The evaluation design was a descriptive qualitative case study, based on observations of DSR practices and interviews.