Role of Mortality data  in

Public Health

Uses of mortality statistics - These include

a. Health planning and administration

• Prioritize investments in control and research
• Evaluate control programmes
• Improve health care delivery and quality

• Investigate role of risk factors
• Investigate impact of interventions

b. Health Research -Monitor trends in mortality and diseases

Users of mortality statistics include

1. Clinicians

2. Community health physicians

3. Epidemiologists

4. Social scientists

5. Biostatisticians/Demographers/ Medical records personnel

6. Programme managers

7. Policy-makers

Reporting of Cause of death

Only about 1 in 5 deaths in India have a cause of death identified for them

Sources of CoD data

CoD data is obtained through -

1. Civil Registration systems (CRS)

2. Sample Registration systems (SRS)

3. Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCD)

1. Civil Registration systems (CRS)

• It is a passive system comprising of registration of all births and deaths by the government 

• Data is collected by non-medical personnel

• Aim: mainly for statistical purposes by registering the fact of death (and not the cause of death)

• Status report in India –

  • Sample is incomplete and non-representative since only ~5.5 out of 10 lakh estimated deaths are reported per year

2. Sample Registration systems (SRS)

• This is a subset of CRS wherein from ~7500 small representative geographic areas of the country the fact of death and the cause of death data are collected for a sample size of ~0.5 lakhs/year

• It comprises of enumeration of deaths in sample villages / urban areas

• It includes investigation of causes of mortality through verbal autopsy by trained non-medical personnel

• Aim: for statistical purposes to assign a cause-of-death

• Status report in India –

  • This system generates reliable community-based information on death rates as well as the causes of death by age-and-sex groups for the country as a whole and for different regions of India 

3. Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCD)

• This is hospital-based certification of deaths by physicians

• Aim: It is used both for patient-oriented quality improvement and for statistical purposes

• Status report in India –

  • It is non-representative since only ~1.5 out of 10 lakh deaths are certified per year; suffers from incomplete and inaccurate reporting of causes of death in hospital certificates

You have now come to the end of this learning activity.

Move on to your next learning activity.