Children are an invaluable population resource and childhood mortality has great importance in terms of a nation’s development, prosperity and well-being. This course has a multi-disciplinary focus that will help students appreciate this complex concept in terms of the burden it places on populations, the causes, and the major interventions needed to reduce the burden of disease.

The course is designed to help you: 

• Understanding the burden of childhood disease that results in morbidity and mortality in this vulnerable population.
• Appreciate the causes and major interventions to reduce the burden of disease.

This course is an Open Online Course (OOC) that has been adopted from Peoples-uni. It was further developed by NextGenU.org (NGU).

There are five (5) modules to complete, which include:

Module 1: Magnitude and Causes of Child Mortality
Module 2: Interventions and Policies to Reduce Child Mortality
Module 3: Diarrhoea and Pneumonia Among Children
Module 4: Financing and Sustainability
Module 5: Implementing an Intervention

Approximate time for completion of this course is 5 hours at an average reading rate of 144 words/minute.

 Engaging with this course

• To register for this course, complete the registration form. Begin the course with Module 1. For each lesson, read the description. 
• Each lesson comprises introductory remarks. You can click on the collections of resources in each module. 
• There is a forum on each module for reflection, and you will be able to add a new topic or respond to a previous one. You may want to share your learning from this and other readings, comment on the topics from your own experience, comment on others' posts, or provide feedback on how we can improve the content and/or presentation.
• There is a final quiz to assess your understanding of some important concepts. Click on the hyperlinks to take you to these items in each topic.

 Requirements to obtain the certificate 

You may browse this course for free to learn for your personal enrichment. There are no requirements.

To obtain a certificate, a learner must successfully complete:

• All reading requirements
• All discussion forums
• The final exam with a minimum of 80% and a maximum of 3 attempts and
• The self and course evaluation forms

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Learning Outcome: Demonstrate an understanding of the magnitude and causes of child mortality locally and globally.

In this Module, we will explore:

• The causes of child mortality/morbidity amongst local populations
• The magnitude of child mortality using relevant indicators in different settings
• The challenges in data collection on child mortality
• Trends in child mortality over time

Before looking at the problems, let's not forget the good news about the improvements in child mortality over time:

Learning Outcome: Understand how evidence-based policies and interventions can improve child health.

This Module will explore:

• Evidence-based policies and interventions that improve child health.
• The quality of the evidence that supports policies and interventions.
• Whether an intervention might be generalizable to your local setting.

Learning Outcome: Understand the approaches to prevent and manage diarrhea and pneumonia among children.

In this Module, we will explore:

• Trends in child mortality related to pneumonia and diarrhea both locally and globally
• Challenges that hinder efforts to prevent and treat diarrhoea and pneumonia
• Approaches being used to prevent and treat pneumonia and diarrhea
• Ways to improve current efforts to counter pneumonia and diarrhea among under fives in local settings

Learning Outcome: Understanding the financing and sustainability of child health interventions.

In this Module, we will explore:

• Various common health financing methods.
• Sustainability of a child health intervention in your local setting.

Learning Outcome: Understand the importance of evidence while designing interventions.

In this Module, we will explore:

• How health system constraints will impact on interventions to improve child health outcomes.
• Potential challenges to specific child health interventions in their local setting.
• Evidence-based interventions that aim to improve health.

To take the final exam, you must complete all quizzes and complete all the required activities. 

To access the exam, click on the name of the exam provided above. On the following screen, click the Attempt Quiz button to respond to the questions.

In this section, you can provide feedback about this course to help us make NextGenU.org better. Once evaluations are completed, you will be able to download your certificate of completion.

Finally: Take the quiz to earn a certificate.