Background In the past two decades, the under-5 mortality rate in China has fallen substantially, but progress with regards to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 at the subnational level has not been quantified. We aimed to estimate under-5 mortality rates in mainland China for the years 1970 to 2012. Methods We estimated the under-5 mortality rate for 31 provinces in mainland China between 1970 and 2013 with data from censuses, surveys, surveillance sites, and disease surveillance points.
