Are cause of death data for Shanghai fit for purpose? A retrospective study of medical records.

Objectives: To assess the quality of cause of death reporting in Shanghai for both hospital and home deaths.

Design And Setting: Medical records review (MRR) to independently establish a reference data set against which to compare original and adjusted diagnoses from a sample of three tertiary hospitals, one secondary level hospital and nine community health centres in Shanghai.

Participants: 1757 medical records (61% males, 39% females) of deaths that occurred in these sample sites in 2017 were reviewed using established diagnostic standards.

Improving the Policy Utility of Cause of Death Statistics in Sri Lanka: An Empirical Investigation of Causes of Out-of-Hospital Deaths Using Automated Verbal Autopsy Methods.

Setting public health policies and effectively monitoring the impact of health interventions requires accurate, timely and complete cause of death (CoD) data for populations. In Sri Lanka, almost half of all deaths occur outside hospitals, with questionable diagnostic accuracy, thus limiting their information content for policy. To ascertain whether SmartVA is applicable in improving the specificity of cause of death data for out-of-hospital deaths in Sri Lanka, and hence enhance the value of these routinely collected data for informing public policy debates.

Improving medical certification of cause of death: effective strategies and approaches based on experiences from the Data for Health Initiative.

Background: Accurate and timely cause of death (COD) data are essential for informed public health policymaking. Medical certification of COD generally provides the majority of COD data in a population and is an essential component of civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems. Accurate completion of the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCOD) should be a relatively straightforward procedure for physicians, but mistakes are common.

Implementing the PHMRC shortened questionnaire: Survey duration of open and closed questions in three sites.

Background: More countries are using verbal autopsy as a part of routine mortality surveillance. The length of time required to complete a verbal autopsy interview is a key logistical consideration for planning large-scale surveillance.

Methods: We use the PHMRC shortened questionnaire to conduct verbal autopsy interviews at three sites and collect data on the length of time required to complete the interview.

A shortened verbal autopsy instrument for use in routine mortality surveillance systems.

Background: Verbal autopsy (VA) is recognized as the only feasible alternative to comprehensive medical certification of deaths in settings with no or unreliable vital registration systems. However, a barrier to its use by national registration systems has been the amount of time and cost needed for data collection. Therefore, a short VA instrument (VAI) is needed.

Assessing the reliability of causes of death reported by the Vital Registration System in Sri Lanka: medical records review in Colombo.

Information on causes of death is critical for informed decision making in the health sector. This paper reports findings from a study that measured the accuracy of registered causes of death and quality of medical records for a sample of deaths occurring in hospitals in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Five physicians, trained in medical certification of cause of death, reconstructed death certificates for hospital deaths from medical records and assessed the quality of medical records for this purpose.