The Possible Effect of Emigration on Infant and Child Mortality from the Vietnam War: Savitz and Swenson Respond

Citation

Savitz, David A. & Swenson, Ingrid Elizabeth (1994). The Possible Effect of Emigration on Infant and Child Mortality from the Vietnam War: Savitz and Swenson Respond. American Journal of Public Health, 84(3), 499-500. PMCID: PMC1614814

Abstract

Smith and Zaidi appropriately emphasize our limited ability to draw conclusions about the historical patterns of infant and child mortality in Vietnam around the period of the war because of the inherent restriction of the 1988 Vietnam Demographic and Health Survey to survivors (i.e., living nonmigrants). The comparison to the experience of the Iraqi population through the period of the 1991 Persian Gulf War clearly yields a different impression about the effects of war on infant and child health. Ascherio et al. conducted their survey shortly after the Persian Gulf War, thus avoiding the substantial loss of eligible respondents due to migration that was the case with the Vietnam survey, which was taken over 20 years after the end of the war there. Clearly, Ascherio et al. had the methodologically preferable approach.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.84.3.499

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

1994

Journal Title

American Journal of Public Health

Author(s)

Savitz, David A.
Swenson, Ingrid Elizabeth

PMCID

PMC1614814