Effect of parent's death on child survival in rural Bangladesh: a cohort study

Background The effect of a parent's death on the survival of the children has been assessed in only a few studies. We therefore investigated the effect of the death of the mother or father on the survival of the child up to age 10 years in rural Bangladesh. Methods We used data from population surveillance during 1982-2005 in Matlab, Bangladesh. We used Kaplan-Meier and Poisson regression analyses to compute the cumulative probabilities of survival and rates of age-specific death up to age 10 years, according to the survival status of the mother or father during that period. Findings There were 144 861 livebirths, and 14 868 children died by 10 years of age. The cumulative probability of survival to age…