Routine mortality surveillance to identify the cause of death pattern for out-of-hospital adult (aged 12+ years) deaths in Bangladesh: introduction of automated verbal autopsy.

Background: In Bangladesh, a poorly functioning national system of registering deaths and determining their causes leaves the country without important information on which to inform health programming, particularly for the 85% of deaths that occur in the community. In 2017, an improved death registration system and automated verbal autopsy (VA) were introduced to 13 upazilas to assess the utility of VA as a routine source of policy-relevant information and to identify leading causes of deaths (COD) in rural Bangladesh.

Methods: Data from 22,535 VAs, collected in 12 upazilas between October 2017 and August 2019, were assigned a COD using the SmartVA Analyze 2.

Measuring Maternal Mortality: Three Case Studies Using Verbal Autopsy with Different Platforms.

Background: Accurate measurement of maternal mortality is needed to develop a greater understanding of the scale of the problem, to increase effectiveness of program planning and targeting, and to track progress. In the absence of good quality vital statistics, interim methods are used to measure maternal mortality. The purpose of this study is to document experience with three community-based interim methods that measure maternal mortality using verbal autopsy.