Adolescence

In this report, all of the child anthropometry indicators arereported according to the WHO Child Growth Standards.An additional column displays underweight prevalence(moderate and severe) based on the NCHS/WHO standard.Owing to the differences between the old reference populationand the new standards, prevalence estimates ofchild anthropometry indicators published in consecutiveeditions of The State of the World’s Children may not befully comparable.Vitamin A supplementation: Only full coverage (twodoses) of vitamin A supplementation is presented inthis report, emphasizing the importance for childrenof receiving two annual doses of vitamin A, spaced4–6 months apart. In the absence of a direct methodto measure this indicator, full coverage is reported asthe lower coverage estimate from rounds 1 and 2 in agiven year.Table 3. Health:Water and Sanitation: The drinking water and sanitationcoverage estimates in this report come from theWHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for WaterSupply and Sanitation (JMP). These are the official UnitedNations estimates for measuring progress towards theMDG target for drinking water and sanitation, and they arebased on a standard classification of what constitutescoverage. JMP estimates coverage using a linearregression line that is fitted to coverage data from allavailable household sample surveys and censuses. Fulldetails of the JMP methodology and country estimates canbe found at and .Table 4. HIV and AIDS:In 2010, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS(UNAIDS) released new global HIV and AIDS estimatesfor 2009 that reflect more reliable data available frompopulation-based surveys, expanded national sentinelsurveillance systems and programme service statisticsin a number of countries. As a result, UNAIDS hasretrospectively generated new estimates for HIVprevalence, the number of people living with HIV andthe number of children whose parents have died dueto all causes or AIDS for past years based on the refinedmethodology.Figures published in this report are not comparable to previousestimates and therefore do not reflect trends overtime. UNAIDS has published comparable estimates by applyingthe new methods to earlier HIV and AIDS estimates;these data can be accessed at . In additionto presenting the HIV prevalence among young malesand females aged 15–24, this year’s table presents the totalHIV prevalence among young people aged 15–24.Table 5. Education:Survival rate to the last grade of primary school: Thesurvival rate to Grade 5 (percentage of primary schoolentrants reaching Grade 5) was replaced in 2008 by thesurvival rate to the last grade of primary school (percentageof children entering the first grade of primary schoolwho are expected to reach the last grade). The survival rateto the last grade became an official indicator for MDG 2(Universal Primary Education) in January 2008.Table 6. Demographic Indicators:Population annual growth rate and average annual growthrate of urban population: These indicators have beenfurther disaggregated to include data for 1990–2000.Table 7. Economic Indicators:Proportion of the population living below US$1.25 per day:In 2008, the World Bank announced a new poverty line thatis based on revised estimates of purchasing power parity(PPP) price levels around the world. Table 7 reflects thisupdated poverty line and reports on the proportion of thepopulation living below US$1.25 per day at 2005 prices,adjusted for PPP. The new poverty threshold reflectsrevisions to PPP exchange rates based on the results ofthe 2005 International Comparison Program. The revisionsreveal that the cost of living is higher across the developingworld than previously estimated. As a result of theserevisions, poverty rates for individual countries cannot becompared with poverty rates reported in previous editions.More detailed information on the definition, methodologyand sources is available at .Table 8. Women: Delivery care coverage: For the first time,the table includes Caesarean section (C-section) as part ofthe indicator on delivery care coverage. C-section is anessential part of comprehensive emergency obstetric care.Maternal mortality ratio (adjusted): The table presents thenew ‘adjusted’ maternal mortality ratios for the year 2008.The new ‘adjusted’ maternal mortality estimates wereproduced by the Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-agencyGroup (MMEIG), which is composed of WHO, UNICEF, theUnited Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the WorldBank, together with independent technical experts. Theinter-agency group has used a dual approach in derivingestimates of maternal mortality, which involves makingadjustments to existing estimates of maternal mortality fromcivil registration systems to correct for misclassification andunder-reporting, and generating model-based estimates forcountries that do not have reliable national-level estimates ofmaternal mortality from civil registration systems.These ‘adjusted’ estimates should not be compared toprevious inter-agency estimates, as the methodologicalSTATISTICAL TABLES 85