152 The World Health Report 2005 For all Member States, other data available for child mortality such as surveys and censuses, were assessed and adjusted to estimate the probable trend over the past few decades in order to predict the child mortality in 2003. A standard approach to predicting child mortality was employed to obtain the estimates for 2003(see An nex Table 2a for more details)(7). Those estimates are, on the one hand, used to replace the under-five mortality rate in life tables of the countries that have a vital registration or sample vital registration system, but with incomplete registration of numbers of deaths under the age of five years. On the other hand, for countries with- out exploitable vital registration systems, which are mainly those with high mortality the predicted under-five mortality rates are used as one of the inputs to the modi fied logit system. Adult mortality rates were derived from either surveys or censuses where available; otherwise the most likely corresponding level of adult mortality was estimated based on regression models of child versus adult mortality as observed in the set of approximately 1800 life tables. These estimated child and adult mortality rates were then applied to a global standard, defined as the average of all the life tables, using the modified logit model to derive the estimates for 2003 It should be noted that the logit model life table system using the global standard does not capture high HIV/AIDS epidemic patterns, because the observed underlying life tables do not come from countries with the epidemic. Similarly, war deaths are not captured because vital registration systems often break down in periods of war 8). For these reasons, for affected countries, mortality without deaths attributable to HIV/AIDS and war was estimated and separate estimates of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS and war in 2003 were added The main results in Annex Table 1 are reported with uncertainty intervals in order to communicate to the user the plausible range of estimates for each country on each measure For the countries with vital registration data projected using time se- ries regression models on the parameters of the logit life table system, uncertainty around the regression coefficients has been accounted for by taking 1000 draws of the parameters using the regression estimates and variance covariance matrix of the estimators. For each of the draws a new life table was calculated In cases where ad ditional sources of information provided plausible ranges around under-five and adult mortality rates the 1000 draws were constrained such that each life table produced estimates within these specified ranges. The range of 1000 life tables produced by these multiple draws reflects some of the uncertainty around the projected trends in mortality, notably the imprecise quantification of systematic changes in the logit parameters over the time period captured in available vital registration data For Member States where complete death registrations were available for the year 2003 and projections were not used, the life table uncertainty reflects the event count uncertainty, approximated by the Poisson distribution, in the estimated age-specific death rates arising from the observation of a finite number of deaths in a fixed time For countries that did not have time series data on mortality by age and sex, the following steps were undertaken. First, point estimates and ranges around under-five and adult mortality rates for males and females were developed on a country-by country basis (5). In the modified logit life table system described (4), values on these two parameters may be used to identify a range of different life tables in relation to a global standard life table. Using the Monte Carlo simulation methods, 1000 random fe tables were generated by drawing samples from normal distributions around these inputs with variances defined according to ranges of uncertainty. In countries where152 The World Health Report 2005 For all Member States, other data available for child mortality, such as surveys and censuses, were assessed and adjusted to estimate the probable trend over the past few decades in order to predict the child mortality in 2003. A standard approach to predicting child mortality was employed to obtain the estimates for 2003 (see An￾nex Table 2a for more details) (7). Those estimates are, on the one hand, used to replace the under-five mortality rate in life tables of the countries that have a vital registration or sample vital registration system, but with incomplete registration of numbers of deaths under the age of five years. On the other hand, for countries with￾out exploitable vital registration systems, which are mainly those with high mortality, the predicted under-five mortality rates are used as one of the inputs to the modi- fied logit system. Adult mortality rates were derived from either surveys or censuses where available; otherwise the most likely corresponding level of adult mortality was estimated based on regression models of child versus adult mortality as observed in the set of approximately 1800 life tables. These estimated child and adult mortality rates were then applied to a global standard, defined as the average of all the life tables, using the modified logit model to derive the estimates for 2003. It should be noted that the logit model life table system using the global standard does not capture high HIV/AIDS epidemic patterns, because the observed underlying life tables do not come from countries with the epidemic. Similarly, war deaths are not captured because vital registration systems often break down in periods of war (8). For these reasons, for affected countries, mortality without deaths attributable to HIV/AIDS and war was estimated and separate estimates of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS and war in 2003 were added. The main results in Annex Table 1 are reported with uncertainty intervals in order to communicate to the user the plausible range of estimates for each country on each measure. For the countries with vital registration data projected using time se￾ries regression models on the parameters of the logit life table system, uncertainty around the regression coefficients has been accounted for by taking 1000 draws of the parameters using the regression estimates and variance covariance matrix of the estimators. For each of the draws, a new life table was calculated. In cases where ad￾ditional sources of information provided plausible ranges around under-five and adult mortality rates the 1000 draws were constrained such that each life table produced estimates within these specified ranges. The range of 1000 life tables produced by these multiple draws reflects some of the uncertainty around the projected trends in mortality, notably the imprecise quantification of systematic changes in the logit parameters over the time period captured in available vital registration data. For Member States where complete death registrations were available for the year 2003 and projections were not used, the life table uncertainty reflects the event count uncertainty, approximated by the Poisson distribution, in the estimated age-specific death rates arising from the observation of a finite number of deaths in a fixed time interval of one year. For countries that did not have time series data on mortality by age and sex, the following steps were undertaken. First, point estimates and ranges around under-five and adult mortality rates for males and females were developed on a country-by￾country basis (5). In the modified logit life table system described (4), values on these two parameters may be used to identify a range of different life tables in relation to a global standard life table. Using the Monte Carlo simulation methods, 1000 random life tables were generated by drawing samples from normal distributions around these inputs with variances defined according to ranges of uncertainty. In countries where