Project Grant K99HD114884

This federal Project Grant award, valued at $115,585, was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865). The primary objective is to develop the research skills of the principal investigator, Dr. Sandipan Pramanik, to improve understanding of disease burden and mortality among children under 5 in low- and middle-income countries. The proposed research aims to: 1) develop a country-specific verbal autopsy misclassification modeling framework to enhance mortality estimation, 2) design Bayesian tests to compare hypotheses about verbal autopsy misclassification effects, and 3) create a statistical downscaling framework to enhance sub-national mortality inference. This work will leverage data from the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) and Countdown to 2030 Mozambique (COMSA) initiatives. The award period is from August 1, 2025 to July 31, 2027, and the work will be conducted at The Johns Hopkins University.