NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The impetus for the study, led by Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, is that of the 9.5 million deaths that occur in India each year, about 75 percent occur in homes rather than hospitals, and the data collected on them—particularly in rural areas—is often unreliable. This isn’t a problem unique to India; it’s true of most low- or middle-income countries, where 75 percent of deaths each year occur.

The study has already caused some controvery, finding for instance that the number of malaria deaths in India may hugely exceed estimates by the World Health Organization and other groups.