摘要：Background: Brass developed a procedure for converting proportionsdead of children ever born reported by women in childbearing ages into es-timates of the probability of dying before attaining certain exact childhoodages. The method has become very popular in less developed countries wheredirect mortality estimation is not possible due to incomplete death registra-tion. However, the estimates of q(x), the probability of dying before age x,obtained by Trussell's variant of Brass method are sometimes unrealistic,q(x) being not monotonically increasing for increasing x.Method: State level child mortality estimates obtained by Trussell'svariant of Brass method from 1991 and 2001 Indian census data were mademonotonically increasing by logit smoothing. Using two of the smoothedchild mortality estimates, infant mortality estimate is obtained by tting atwo parameter Weibull survival function.Results: It has been found that in many states and union territoriesinfant mortality rates have increased between 1991 and 2001. Cross checkingwith the 1991 and 2001 census data on the increase/decrease of percentageof children died establishes the reliability of the estimates.Conclusion: We have reason to suspect the trend of declining infantmortality as shown by the di erent agencies and researchers.
