ArticleBMC medicine2015
A shortened verbal autopsy instrument for use in routine mortality surveillance systems.
Article in BMC medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed.
- The impact of interactive text communication on neonatal mortality in Kenya: a randomized controlled trial.Nature medicine · 2025Trial
- Azithromycin for the prevention of rehospitalisation and death among Kenyan children being discharged from hospital: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised controlled trial.The Lancet. Global health · 2021Trial
- Cause-specific mortality of children younger than 5 years in communities receiving biannual mass azithromycin treatment in Niger: verbal autopsy results from a cluster-randomised controlled trial.The Lancet. Global health · 2020Trial
- Mortality due to snakebite and other venomous animals in the Indian state of Bihar: Findings from a representative mortality study.PloS one · 2018Trial
- Stalled decline in infant mortality among Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip since 2006.PloS one · 2018Trial
- Trial
- Causes of mortality in humanitarian crises requiring coordinated response: a scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Verbal autopsy instruments for 'causes and circumstances' surrounding drowning deaths in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review.Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention · 2026Article
- Determining causes of death through an abridged verbal autopsy tool: a pilot test conducted among vulnerable communities in Kolkata, India.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Adaptive modelling approach for predicting causes of death: insights from verbal autopsy data in Tanzania.International health · 2026Article
- A comparison of verbal autopsy assignment methods to obtain adult cause-specific mortality in two longitudinal studies in Rakai and Kalungu districts of South Central, Uganda.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Adapting the 2022 WHO verbal autopsy tool for use in Lagos State, Nigeria: insights from the LVASA-SRS project.BMC research notes · 2025Article
- Causes and risk factors for deaths in young infants in South Asia: the ANISA prospective population-based observational cohort study.BMJ global health · 2025Observational
- Association of clinical signs of possible serious bacterial infections identified by community health workers with mortality of young infants in South Asia: a prospective, observational cohort study.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Using Minimally Invasive Tissue Sampling and Determination of Cause of Death to Establish Etiologies of Community Respiratory Deaths Among Zambian Infants and Children.Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society · 2025Article
- Article
- Understanding multilevel barriers to childhood vaccination uptake among Internally Displaced Populations (IDPs) in Mogadishu, Somalia: a qualitative study.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Assessment of the underlying causes of adult deaths using a short version of verbal autopsy in Xaiyabouli Province, Lao People's Democratic Republic.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Estimating causes of community death of adults in Myanmar from a nationwide population sample: Application of verbal autopsy.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Cohort profile: Research on Obesity and Diabetes among African Migrants in Europe and Africa Prospective (RODAM-Pros) cohort study.BMJ open · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
55 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundVerbal autopsy (VA) is recognized as the only feasible alternative to comprehensive medical certification of deaths in settings with no or unreliable vital registration systems. However, a barrier to its use by national registration systems has been the amount of time and cost needed for data collection. Therefore, a short VA instrument (VAI) is needed. In this paper we describe a shortened version of the VAI developed for the Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) Gold Standard Verbal Autopsy Validation Study using a systematic approach.
methodsWe used data from the PHMRC validation study. Using the Tariff 2.0 method, we first established a rank order of individual questions in the PHMRC VAI according to their importance in predicting causes of death. Second, we reduced the size of the instrument by dropping questions in reverse order of their importance. We assessed the predictive performance of the instrument as questions were removed at the individual level by calculating chance-corrected concordance and at the population level with cause-specific mortality fraction (CSMF) accuracy. Finally, the optimum size of the shortened instrument was determined using a first derivative analysis of the decline in performance as the size of the VA instrument decreased for adults, children, and neonates.
resultsThe full PHMRC VAI had 183, 127, and 149 questions for adult, child, and neonatal deaths, respectively. The shortened instrument developed had 109, 69, and 67 questions, respectively, representing a decrease in the total number of questions of 40-55%. The shortened instrument, with text, showed non-significant declines in CSMF accuracy from the full instrument with text of 0.4%, 0.0%, and 0.6% for the adult, child, and neonatal modules, respectively.
conclusionsWe developed a shortened VAI using a systematic approach, and assessed its performance when administered using hand-held electronic tablets and analyzed using Tariff 2.0. The length of a VA questionnaire was shortened by almost 50% without a significant drop in performance. The shortened VAI developed reduces the burden of time and resources required for data collection and analysis of cause of death data in civil registration systems.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.