Trial reportBMC medicine2019
Automated versus physician assignment of cause of death for verbal autopsies: randomized trial of 9374 deaths in 117 villages in India.
Trial report in BMC medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT02810366 (Physician Versus Computer Coding of Verbal Autopsies, a Randomised Control Trial), which is not on this map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
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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.
Physician Versus Computer Coding of Verbal Autopsies, a Randomised Control Trial
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Causes and circumstances of maternal death: a secondary analysis of the Community-Level Interventions for Pre-eclampsia (CLIP) trials cohort.The Lancet. Global health · 2021Trial
- Causes and Contributing Factors of In-Hospital and Post-Discharge Mortality Among Patients With Severe Acute Respiratory Infection in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Scoping Review.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Comparison of verbal autopsy using a large language model to biologically confirmed causes of death for malaria and other communicable diseases among children in six sub-Saharan African countries.Malaria journal · 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
- Computer assisted verbal autopsy: comparing large language models to physicians for assigning causes to 6939 deaths in Sierra Leone from 2019-2022.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Use of the International Classification of Diseases to Perinatal Mortality (ICD-PM) with verbal autopsy to determine the causes of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in rural Cambodia: a population-based, prospective, cohort study.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2025Article
- Child, maternal, and adult mortality in rural Ethiopia in 2019: a cross-sectional mortality survey using electronic verbal autopsies.EClinicalMedicine · 2024Article
- Agreement between cause of death assignment by computer-coded verbal autopsy methods and physician coding of verbal autopsy interviews in South Africa.Global health action · 2023Article
- Correcting for Verbal Autopsy Misclassification Bias in Cause-Specific Mortality Estimates.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2023Review
- 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
- Mortality Associated with AmbientEnvironmental health perspectives · 2022Article
- Spatio-temporal modelling of malaria mortality in India from 2004 to 2013 from the Million Death Study.Malaria journal · 2022Article
- How advanced is the epidemiological transition in Papua New Guinea? New evidence from verbal autopsy.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Verbal autopsy: Critical eye on a valuable tool for mortality surveillance.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2022Article
- Child, maternal, and adult mortality in Sierra Leone: nationally representative mortality survey 2018-20.The Lancet. Global health · 2022Article
- Comparison of machine learning algorithms applied to symptoms to determine infectious causes of death in children: national survey of 18,000 verbal autopsies in the Million Death Study in India.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Metabolic Reprogramming of Immune Cells at the Maternal-Fetal Interface and the Development of Techniques for Immunometabolism.Frontiers in immunology · 2021Review
- Extremes in water availability and suicide: Evidence from a nationally representative sample of rural Indian adults.Environmental research · 2020Article
- Automated verbal autopsy: from research to routine use in civil registration and vital statistics systems.BMC medicine · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
17 authors at 10 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundVerbal autopsies with physician assignment of cause of death (COD) are commonly used in settings where medical certification of deaths is uncommon. It remains unanswered if automated algorithms can replace physician assignment.
methodsWe randomized verbal autopsy interviews for deaths in 117 villages in rural India to either physician or automated COD assignment. Twenty-four trained lay (non-medical) surveyors applied the allocated method using a laptop-based electronic system. Two of 25 physicians were allocated randomly to independently code the deaths in the physician assignment arm. Six algorithms (Naïve Bayes Classifier (NBC), King-Lu, InSilicoVA, InSilicoVA-NT, InterVA-4, and SmartVA) coded each death in the automated arm. The primary outcome was concordance with the COD distribution in the standard physician-assigned arm. Four thousand six hundred fifty-one (4651) deaths were allocated to physician (standard), and 4723 to automated arms.
resultsThe two arms were nearly identical in demographics and key symptom patterns. The average concordances of automated algorithms with the standard were 62%, 56%, and 59% for adult, child, and neonatal deaths, respectively. Automated algorithms showed inconsistent results, even for causes that are relatively easy to identify such as road traffic injuries. Automated algorithms underestimated the number of cancer and suicide deaths in adults and overestimated other injuries in adults and children. Across all ages, average weighted concordance with the standard was 62% (range 79-45%) with the best to worst ranking automated algorithms being InterVA-4, InSilicoVA-NT, InSilicoVA, SmartVA, NBC, and King-Lu. Individual-level sensitivity for causes of adult deaths in the automated arm was low between the algorithms but high between two independent physicians in the physician arm.
conclusionsWhile desirable, automated algorithms require further development and rigorous evaluation. Lay reporting of deaths paired with physician COD assignment of verbal autopsies, despite some limitations, remains a practicable method to document the patterns of mortality reliably for unattended deaths.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov , NCT02810366. Submitted on 11 April 2016.
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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.