Performance criteria for verbal autopsy-based systems to estimate national causes of death: development and application to the Indian Million Death Study.

Background: Verbal autopsy (VA) has been proposed to determine the cause of death (COD) distributions in settings where most deaths occur without medical attention or certification. We develop performance criteria for VA-based COD systems and apply these to the Registrar General of India's ongoing, nationally-representative Indian Million Death Study (MDS).

Methods: Performance criteria include a low ill-defined proportion of deaths before old age; reproducibility, including consistency of COD distributions with independent resampling; differences in COD distribution of hospital, home, urban or rural deaths; age-, sex- and time-specific plausibility of specific diseases; stability and repeatability of dual physician coding; and the ability of the mortality classification system to capture a wide range of conditions.

Determinants of inhalant (whitener) use among street children in a South Indian city.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in the year 2008 among 174 children in observation homes in Hyderabad, India, to estimate the distribution of inhalant (whitener) use among this population. Data were collected using an instrument developed for this purpose. About 61% of the children were boys and their mean age was 12.

Snakebite mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey.

Background: India has long been thought to have more snakebites than any other country. However, inadequate hospital-based reporting has resulted in estimates of total annual snakebite mortality ranging widely from about 1,300 to 50,000. We calculated direct estimates of snakebite mortality from a national mortality survey.

HIV mortality and infection in India: estimates from nationally representative mortality survey of 1.1 million homes.

Objective: To determine the rates of death and infection from HIV in India.

Design: Nationally representative survey of deaths.

Setting: 1.

Trends in HIV-1 in young adults in south India from 2000 to 2004: a prevalence study.

Background: Major increases in HIV-1 prevalence in India have been predicted. Incident infections need to be tracked to understand the epidemic's course, especially in some southern states of India where the epidemic is more advanced. To estimate incidence, we investigated the prevalence of HIV-1 in young people attending antenatal and sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinics in India.