Baseline Estimates of Diarrhea-associated Mortality Among United States Children Before Rotavirus Vaccine Introduction

Objectives: Deaths due to diarrhea among US children declined substantially from the 1960s through the 1980s, but have not been recently assessed. We examined diarrhea-associated mortality among young US children from 1992 to 2006 to establish baseline estimates through which the effect of rotavirus vaccines, introduced in 2006, can be assessed. Methods: National Center for Health Statistics multiple cause-of-death mortality data were used to...