Mixed-methods analysis of select issues reported in the 2016 World Health Organization verbal autopsy questionnaire.

Background: Use of a standardized verbal autopsy (VA) questionnaire, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) instrument, can improve the consistency and reliability of the data it collects. Systematically revising a questionnaire, however, requires evidence about the performance of its questions. The purpose of this investigation was to use a mixed methods approach to evaluate the performance of questions related to 14 previously reported issues in the 2016 version of the WHO questionnaire, where there were concerns of potential confusion, redundancy, or inability of the respondent to answer the question.

A systematic review of vital events tracking by community health agents.

: Efforts to improve national civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems are focusing on transforming traditionally passive systems into active systems that have the ability to reach the household level. While community health agents remain at the core of many birth and death reporting efforts, previous literature has not explored elements for their successful integration into CRVS efforts. : To inform future efforts to improve CRVS systems, we conducted a systematic review of literature to understand and describe the design features, resulting data quality, and factors impacting the performance of community health agents involved in tracking vital events.