Table 1.

Number of live births and neonatal deaths in intervention and control areas, baseline and trial periods combined

	Nepala						India						Bangladesh						Malawi						Total
	Control			Intervention			Control			Intervention			Control			Intervention			Control			Intervention
	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	%	Neonatal deaths	Live births	Neonatal deaths
Total	3264	100	121	2923	100	78	10981	100	634	11735	100	542	13373	100	411	13647	100	359	6776	100	202	6421	100	158	69120	2505
Marginalization
Less marginalized	1727	55	56	1846	65	45	5675	52	297	4668	40	205	11084	83	330	10986	81	269	5162	77	152	4964	78	127	46112	1481
Most marginalized	1433	45	60	996	35	32	5296	48	337	7063	60	337	2283	17	81	2655	19	89	1562	23	50	1400	22	31	22688	1017
Literacy
Literate	717	23	25	1111	40	19	3363	31	170	2795	24	112	10237	77	289	10199	75	249	4123	61	116	4101	65	112	36646	1092
Illiterate	2364	77	91	1668	60	56	7598	69	462	8932	76	429	3133	23	122	3437	25	109	2590	39	86	2257	35	46	31979	1401
Economic status
Less poor	1437	44	46	1427	49	36	4570	42	232	3391	29	142	6386	48	171	5959	44	128	3021	45	86	2654	42	51	28845	892
Poorest	1818	56	75	1484	51	42	6411	58	402	8343	71	400	6978	52	240	7684	56	230	3692	55	115	3700	58	106	40110	1610

Summing of the sub-groups does not always add up to the totals because of missing values.

Note on measurement of economic status: Nepal: predefined asset levels in the surveillance questionnaire, based on household ownership of one or more of the items in the list, were as follows: richest (bus, truck, motorcycle, TV, motor tractor, fridge, hand tractor), next-rich (sewing machine, cassette player, fan, radio, camera, bicycle), next-poor (wall clock, iron), poorest (none of the above). As over 50% of live births were in households that owned none of the asset items, we combined the richest, next-rich and next-poor level into the category ‘less poor’. India, Bangladesh, Malawi: principal component analysis-based asset index. List of asset items for which data were available varied between trials: India (electricity, generator, battery, fan, TV, radio, tape, fridge, bicycle, motor), Bangladesh (electricity, generator, fan, TV, radio, fridge, bicycle, telephone), Malawi (electricity, radio, bicycle, motor, car, lamp, oxcart).

^aFor the original Nepal trial paper, data entry was frozen on 1 December 2003. However, after this date, the monitoring and evaluation team continued to receive a few additional forms for births that took place within the trial period (38 live births, of which 2 NND in control areas, and 24 live births of which 2 NND in intervention areas). We included the data for these records in our analysis. Although the inclusion of these births that took place within the trial period is certainly more accurate, the very small difference in numbers of records will have had no effect on the findings.