The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) Program aims to identify and collect data on causes of stillbirths and deaths of children under 5 years of age in areas of  Africa and South Asia with high infant and child mortality. The CHAMPS Program is designed to apply advanced laboratory methodologies, diagnosis standards and a systematic approach to obtain more reliable and accurate data for causes of child deaths and stillbirths to inform public health actions.

The purpose of the CHAMPS manual is to describe the standardized procedures and processes for determining cause of death across the CHAMPS network and to serve as a reference for training and quality management. The manual includes an overview of the CHAMPS Mortality Surveillance process, from death notification through determination of cause of death (DeCoDe) and family follow-up. Key features of the CHAMPS approach are highlighted, including the use of minimally invasive tissue sampling (MITS), systematic approach to DeCoDe, and approaches to quality management and standardization of processes and data collection.

The manual is based on the initial CHAMPS Laboratory and Diagnostics Plan and the objective of the manual is to provide information and access to all the current procedures and processes used for determining cause of death across the CHAMPS network, including all current Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), associated forms, guidance documents and other related materials and references.

The manual will continue to be updated to reflect current processes and procedures utilized at CHAMPS network sites, including best practices and lessons learned, to improve the efficiency of processes and the accuracy of CHAMPS data and results.
To access the full manual, please click the image below.