Estimating causes of death where there is no medical certification: evolution and state of the art of verbal autopsy.

Over the past 70 years, significant advances have been made in determining the causes of death in populations not served by official medical certification of cause at the time of death using a technique known as Verbal Autopsy (VA). VA involves an interview of the family or caregivers of the deceased after a suitable bereavement interval about the circumstances, signs and symptoms of the deceased in the period leading to death. The VA interview data are then interpreted by physicians or, more recently, computer algorithms, to assign a probable cause of death.

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.

Feasibility of using a World Health Organization-standard methodology for Sample Vital Registration with Verbal Autopsy (SAVVY) to report leading causes of death in Zambia: results of a pilot in four provinces, 2010.

Background: Verbal autopsy (VA) can be used to describe leading causes of death in countries like Zambia where vital events registration does not produce usable data. The objectives of this study were to assess the feasibility of using verbal autopsy to determine age-, sex-, and cause-specific mortality in a community-based setting in Zambia and to estimate overall age-, sex-, and cause-specific mortality in the four provinces sampled.

Methods: A dedicated census was conducted in regions of four provinces chosen by cluster-sampling methods in January 2010.

Effectiveness and cost of facility-based Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) in Tanzania.

Background: The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy is designed to address major causes of child mortality at the levels of community, health facility, and health system. We assessed the effectiveness of facility-based IMCI in rural Tanzania.

Methods: We compared two districts with facility-based IMCI and two neighbouring comparison districts without IMCI, from 1997 to 2002, in a non-randomised study.

Community-based monitoring of safe motherhood in the United Republic of Tanzania.

Objective: To examine the progress made towards the Safe Motherhood Initiative goals in three areas of the United Republic of Tanzania during the 1990s.

Methods: Maternal mortality in the United Republic of Tanzania was monitored by sentinel demographic surveillance of more than 77,000 women of reproductive age, and by prospective monitoring of mortality in the following locations; an urban site; a wealthier rural district; and a poor rural district. The observation period for the rural districts was 1992-99 and 1993-99 for the urban site.