Abstract: Investments in the survival of older children and adolescents (aged 5–19 years) bring triple dividends for now, their future, and the next generation. However, 1.5 million deaths occurred in this age group globally in 2019, nearly all from preventable causes. To better focus the attention of the global community on improving survival of children and adolescents and to guide effective policy and programmes, sound and timely cause of death data are crucial, but often scarce. In this systematic analysis, we provide updated time-series for 2000–19 of national, regional, and global cause of death estimates for 5–19-year-olds with age-sex disaggregation. We estimated separately for countries with high versus low mortality, by data availability, and for four age-sex groups (5–9-year-olds [both sexes], 10–14-year-olds [both sexes], 15–19-year-old females, and 15–19-year-old males). We obtained empirical cause of death data through systematic review, known investigator tracing, and acquisition of known national and subnational cause of death studies. We adapted the Bayesian LASSO approach to address data scarcity, enhance covariate selection, produce more robust estimates, offer increased flexibility, allow country random effects, propagate coherent uncertainty, and improve model stability. We harmonised all-cause mortality estimates with UN IGME and systematically integrated single cause estimates as needed from WHO and UNAIDS. In 2019, the global leading specific causes of death were road traffic injuries (115,843 deaths; 7.8%); neoplasms (95,401; 6.4%); malaria (81,516; 5.5%); drowning (77,460; 5.2%); and diarrhoea (72,679, 4.9%). The leading causes varied substantially across regions. The contribution of communicable, maternal, perinatal, and nutritional conditions declined with age, whereas the number of deaths associated with injuries increased. Widespread declines in cause-specific mortality were estimated across age-sex groups and geographies in 2000–19, with few exceptions like collective violence.
The meeting will be held online via Zoom.