Improving child survival in Greenland

Infant and child mortality have been shown to be high in Greenland compared with northern European countries. Mortality is highest in the socioeconomically less developed areas, and the medical reasons are particularly perinatal conditions, infectious diseases, and injuries. However, possibilities for making correct diagnosis are poor, and so are possibilities for an effective, systematic preventive effort. Recent studies indicate that stillbirths and child deaths below the age of 15 can be divided into avoidable and unavoidable deaths, and that avoidable deaths under local circumstances count for 16%. Therefore, it has been decided to systematically try to improve child survival primarily based on the following program: 1. Establishing a Pediatric Death Review Committee. 2. Education of health care workers, and 3. Improvement of the equipment status. The main goals of the program are to reduce infant mortality by 40% within a 4 year period, to reduce the number of child deaths in the age group 1-14 by 20%, and to reduce regional differences in child mortality in Greenland by 50%.