The abstract is read at the publisher; the summary is JClub's.
Across 204 countries, the median childhood LRI episode-fatality ratio gap to each region’s 10th-percentile frontier stayed essentially flat from 1990 to 2023 (1.86 to 1.86).
- Why it matters: Survival after childhood LRI is a tracer of health-system performance, but it was unknown whether countries converge toward best regional survival. This study tests that convergence directly at national scale.
- What they did: Using GBD 2023 estimates for ages 0–19, the authors computed EFR = LRI deaths/incident episodes for each country-year (episodes observed in 1990, 2019, 2023; intermediates interpolated). They defined the frontier as the 10th-percentile country EFR within each GBD super-region and year, then tracked each country’s gap = EFR_country/EFR_frontier.
- The result: Among 137 countries, 67 narrowed and 69 widened their gap, with one unchanged; only 19 achieved sustained catch-up. Joinpoint regression found no net narrowing over 33 years (average annual percent change +0.03%, 95% CI -0.05 to 0.12), and COVID-era divergence peaked in 2021 at 2.00 before returning to 1.86.
The findingWhy it mattersWhat they didThe result
AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.