Global age-specific denominator estimation for monitoring of health and nutrition SDGs and indicators based on population projections of the UN World population prospects, 2017 revision, for the year 2018

Abstract

Background: The success of any program is measured by continuous monitoring through service statistics for a periodic oversight and through evaluation surveys to measure the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and impact of activities in the light of specified objectives. Service statistics need a lot of indicators to be tracked on a regular basis. The service statistics provide us with numerators. To understand the numerators more meaningfully, we need to standardize them by using specific denominators. So, denominators have to be estimated, which can enable computation of indicators for monitoring purposes. Census and Large scale sample surveys provide proportions to calculate denominators for program monitoring purposes.Methods: This paper uses demographic techniques to estimate denominators for all the countries for which data from the world population prospects is available.Results: The denominators have been estimated for number of infants, children and women of reproductive age and elderly in the age group of 60+ years.Conclusions: The estimations of denominators at the sub-national levels becomes quite challenging due to the scarce availability of data to be used as proportions for different population groups. But, once, the methodology is improved with appropriate data, it could serve as a boon for annual program monitoring process at multiple data time points between two national surveys.