This paper proposes a new method of measuring excess risk of child
mortality in cross-sectional surveys, which is applied to DHS I data for
Burundi, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The expected child mortality experience is
estimated for each mother on the basis of child's age, mother's age at child's
birth and her parity, and compared with her observed experience. Mothers who
exceed their expected child mortality experience and also had more than one
child die are considered to have excess child mortality. Zimbabwe had the
greatest concentration of child deaths as measured by a simple ratio of
mothers to deaths, but when observed experience was compared with expected it
had less than half as many excess deaths as Uganda and Burundi. In all three
countries mother's education had a strong negative
association with the risk of excess child mortality, and in
Zimbabwe and Burundi there were significant regional differences.