Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37882130›Full record

ArticleSouth African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde2023

Further evidence of misclassification of the injury deaths in South Africa: When will the barriers to accurate injury death statistics be removed?

P Groenewald, N Kallis, C Holmgren, T Glass, A Anthony, P Maud, Y Akhalwaya, E Afonso, I Niewoudt, L J Martin and 6 more

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
0.7field-weighted citation impact, top 28% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

16 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.

P GroenewaldBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa. pamela.groenewald@mrc.ac.za.
N KallisBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa. Natasha.Kallis@mrc.ac.za.
C HolmgrenBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa. Chantelle.Holmgren@mrc.ac.za.
T GlassBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa. tracy.glass@mrc.ac.za.
A AnthonyDepartment of Health and Wellness, Western Cape Department of Health, Cape Town, South Africa. Adele.Anthony@westerncape.gov.za.
P MaudBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa. padimaud@gmail.com.
Y AkhalwayaFamily Centre for Research with Ubuntu (FAM-CRU), Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. yasmeen@sun.ac.za.
E AfonsoDivision of Forensic Medicine, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. ebafonso@sun.ac.za.
I NiewoudtDivision of Forensic Medicine, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. ilsedp@sun.ac.za.
L J MartinDivision of Forensic Medicine, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa; Forensic Pathology Service, Western Cape Department of Health, Cape Town, South Africa. lornaj.martin@uct.ac.za.
C De VaalDivision of Forensic Medicine, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. celeste.devaal@uct.ac.za.
M CheyipUS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pretoria, South Africa. uwt8@cdc.gov.
D MorofUS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pretoria, South Africa. igd6@cdc.gov.
M PrinslooBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa; Institute for Lifecourse Development, Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences, University of Greenwich, London, UK; School of Public Health and Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa. megan.prinsloo@mrc.ac.za.
R MatzopoulosBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa; School of Public Health and Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa. richard.matzopoulos@mrc.ac.za.
D BradshawBurden of Disease Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa. debbie.bradshaw@mrc.ac.za.
South African Medical Research Council · ZAStellenbosch University · ZAWestern Cape Department of Health · ZACenters for Disease Control and Prevention · UG

Funding

Intramural CDC HHS CC999999
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundContrary to the World Health Organization's internationally recommended medical certificate of cause of death, the South African (SA) death notification form (DNF) does not allow for the reporting of the manner of death to permit accurate coding of external causes of injury deaths.

objectivesTo describe the injury cause-of-death profile from forensic pathology records collected for the National Cause-of-Death Validation (NCoDV) Project and compare it with profiles from other sources of injury mortality data. In particular, the recording of firearm use in homicides is compared between sources.

methodsThe NCoDV Project was a cross-sectional study of deaths that occurred during a fixed period in 2017 and 2018, from a nationally representative sample of 27 health subdistricts in SA. Trained fieldworkers scanned forensic records for all deaths investigated at the forensic mortuaries serving the sampled subdistricts during the study period. Forensic practitioners reviewed the records and completed a medical certificate of cause of death for each decedent. Causes of death were coded to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10), using Iris automated coding software. Cause-specific mortality fractions for injury deaths were compared with Injury Mortality Survey 2017 (IMS 2017) and Statistics South Africa 2017 (Stats SA 2017) datasets. The cause profile for all firearm-related deaths was compared between the three datasets.

resultsA total of 5 315 records were available for analysis. Males accounted for 77.6% of cases, and most decedents were aged between 25 and 44 years. Homicide was the leading cause of death (34.7%), followed by transport injuries (32.6%) and suicide (14.7%). This injury cause profile was similar to IMS 2017 but differed markedly from the official statistics, which showed markedly lower proportions of these three causes (15.0%, 11.6% and 0.7%, respectively), and a much higher proportion of other unintentional causes. Investigation of firearm-related deaths revealed that most were homicides in NCoDV 2017/18 (88.5%) and IMS 2017 (93.1%), while in the Stats SA 2017 data, 98.7% of firearm deaths were classified as accidental. Approximately 7% of firearm-related deaths were suicides in NCoDV 2017/18 and IMS 2017, with only 0.3% in Stats SA 2017.

conclusionThe official cause-of-death data for injuries in SA in 2017 differed substantially from findings from the NCoDV 2017/18 study and IMS 2017. Accurate data sources would ensure that public health interventions are designed to reduce the high injury burden. Inclusion of the manner of death on the DNF, as is recommended internationally, is critically important to enable more accurate, reliable and valid reporting of the injury profile.

Indexed as

SuicideAdultCause of DeathCross-Sectional StudiesHomicideHumansMaleSouth Africa

Identifiers

PMID37882130
PMCPMC11017197
OpenAlexW4386422897

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Registered trials

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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.