ArticleBMJ global health2021
Monitoring progress with national and subnational health goals by integrating verbal autopsy and medically certified cause of death data.
Article in BMJ global health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cardiovascular disease mortality based on verbal autopsy in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2023Pooled it
- Global, regional, and national burden of ischemic heart disease in young and middle-aged population from 1990 to 2021.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Synthesizing a pragmatic and systemized measure of universal health coverage: verifying the circumstances of mortality CATegories of death investigated by verbal autopsy.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Improving medical certification of cause of death in Assiut University Children Hospital: an intervention study.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Territorial gaps on quality of causes of death statistics over the last forty years in Spain.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Estimating causes of community death of adults in Myanmar from a nationwide population sample: Application of verbal autopsy.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Estimation of national and subnational all-cause mortality indicators in Nepal, 2017.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Strengthening causes of death identification through community-based verbal autopsy during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Mortality estimates for WHO SEAR countries: problems and prospects.BMJ global health · 2021Review
- Integrating community-based verbal autopsy into civil registration and vital statistics: lessons learnt from five countries.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- Who dies where? Estimating the percentage of deaths that occur at home.BMJ global health · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe measurement of progress towards many Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and other health goals requires accurate and timely all-cause and cause of death (COD) data. However, existing guidance to countries to calculate these indicators is inadequate for populations with incomplete death registration and poor-quality COD data. We introduce a replicable method to estimate national and subnational cause-specific mortality rates (and hence many such indicators) where death registration is incomplete by integrating data from Medical Certificates of Cause of Death (MCCOD) for hospital deaths with routine verbal autopsy (VA) for community deaths.
methodsThe integration method calculates population-level cause-specific mortality fractions (CSMFs) from the CSMFs of MCCODs and VAs weighted by estimated deaths in hospitals and the community. Estimated deaths are calculated by applying the empirical completeness method to incomplete death registration/reporting. The resultant cause-specific mortality rates are used to estimate SDG Indicator 23: mortality between ages 30 and 70 years from cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. We demonstrate the method using nationally representative data in Myanmar, comprising over 42 000 VAs and 7600 MCCODs.
resultsIn Myanmar in 2019, 89% of deaths were estimated to occur in the community. VAs comprised an estimated 70% of community deaths. Both the proportion of deaths in the community and CSMFs for the four causes increased with older age. We estimated that the probability of dying from any of the four causes between 30 and 70 years was 0.265 for men and 0.216 for women. This indicator is 50% higher if based on CSMFs from the integration of data sources than on MCCOD data from hospitals.
conclusionThis integration method facilitates country authorities to use their data to monitor progress with national and subnational health goals, rather than rely on estimates made by external organisations. The method is particularly relevant given the increasing application of routine VA in country Civil Registration and Vital Statistics systems.
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