CRVS Fellowship profile: Assessing the completeness of death registration in Colombia, Daniel Lancheros

In 2020, Daniel Lancheros from the Institute of Public Health in Colombia undertook a CRVS Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, assessing the completeness of death registration in 14 municipalities in Colombia. This profile documents Daniel's Fellowship experiences and outcomes, and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Colombia.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Assessing the impact of death certification interventions in Peru

Between November 2017 and January 2018, Janet Miki from the Ministry of Health in Perú, came to the University of Melbourne to receive support in conducting a study assessing the impact of two death certification interventions to improve cause of death data in Perú. This fellowship profile documents Janet’s experiences whilst at Melbourne, including what she worked on, what she learned, and what impact this might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Perú.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Assessing the performance of verbal autopsy in Bangladesh

This profile provides an overview of country context in relation to CRVS, and documents Toufiq’s personal experiences and outcomes and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Bangladesh.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Assessing the quality of mortality data in the Maldives

From September to November 2019, Sofoora Kawsar Usman from the Ministry of Health (MOH) in the Maldives undertook a CRVS Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, assessing the quality of mortality data in the Maldives. This profile provides an overview of country context in relation to CRVS, and documents Sofoora’s personal experiences and outcomes and the broader impact her Fellowship might have on strengthening CRVS in the Maldives.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Assessing the quality of mortality statistics in Shanghai

In 2017, Dr Tan Ziwen came to the University to learn about how to routinely assess the quality of vital statistics data using ANACONDA.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Assessing the quality of vital statistics in the Philippines

Between July and October 2018, Majorie “Joy” Villaver, a supervising statistical specialist of the Philippine Statistics Authority, came to the University of Melbourne to assess the quality and completeness of birth and death registration, as well as the quality of cause of death data using the ANACONDA tool. This fellowship profile documents Joy’s experiences while at Melbourne, including what she worked on, what she found, and what impacts this might have on improving the civil registration and vital statistics system in the Philippines.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Completeness of death registration in India: national and sub-national estimates, Jayanta Kumar Basu

From February to March 2020, Jayanta Kumar Basu from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in India undertook a CRVS Fellowship through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative at the University of Melbourne, estimating the completeness of death registration in India at the national and sub-national levels. This profile documents Jayanta’s personal experiences and outcomes and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in India.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Counting all deaths by scaling up verbal autopsy, David Lenga (Tanzania)

From February to March 2020, David Lenga from the Ministry of Health in Tanzania undertook a CRVS Fellowship to assist with national plans to scale up verbal autopsy. This profile documents David's personal experiences and outcomes, and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Tanzania.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Country-specific adaptation of a SmartVA DHIS2 integration module for Sri Lanka

Between July and September 2018, Chamika Senanayake, from the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine came to the University of Melbourne to receive support in developing a SmartVA DHIS2 integration platform that would streamline all manual CRVS data flow processes into a single automated process in Sri Lanka.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Customising ANACONDA and strengthening the quality of mortality data in Brazil

Between August and September 2017, Ana Cláudia Medeiros de Souza, from the Ministry of Health, Brazil, spent time at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health (Swiss TPH) Institute, University of Basel, to translate into Portuguese the mortality and cause of death assessment tool, ANACONDA. She then came to the University of Melbourne in September 2018 to translate the newly-developed ANACONDA Mortality Data Quality Assessment Report template and adapt it for use at the sub-national level in Brazil.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Developing a qualitative study protocol on VA interviewer experiences in Myanmar

This CRVS fellowship profile documents Zin’s experiences while at Melbourne, including how she developed the protocol, how she intends to apply it, and what impact her fellowship might have on improving mortality statistics as generated through the CRVS system in Myanmar.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Estimating the completeness of birth and death registration in Ecuador

Between August and October 2018, José Andrade, from the Vital Statistics Department of the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) in Ecuador, came to the University of Melbourne to receive support in calculating the completeness of birth and death registration in Ecuador. His fellowship involved using surveys, censuses, and population projections to do so, and these methods are described here, along with implications for the CRVS system of Ecuador.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Evaluating the death notification system in Sierra Leone (James Fawundu)

From February to March 2021, James Fawundu from the National Civil Registration Authority in Sierra Leone undertook a remote CRVS Fellowship through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative at the University of Melbourne, evaluating the national death notification system in Sierra Leone. This profile documents James’ personal experiences and outcomes, and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Sierra Leone.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Generating complete mortality statistics from hospital data in Myanmar

This profile provides an overview of country context in relation to CRVS, and documents May Thu Zaw’s personal experiences and outcomes and the broader impact her Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Myanmar.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Improving the quality of birth and death data in Brazil

Between September and November 2018, Luiz Fernando, from the Brazil Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), came to the University of Melbourne to work on completeness of births and deaths as well as record linkage. This fellowship profile documents Luiz’s experiences whilst at Melbourne, including what he worked on, what he learned, and what impact this might have on improving the quality of vital statistics in Brazil.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Improving the quality of cause of death data in Laos, Dilip Hensman

From February to March 2020, Dilip Hensman from the World Health Organization (WHO) in Lao PDR undertook a CRVS Fellowship through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative at University of Melbourne, developing a strategy for improving the notification of community deaths and piloting automated verbal autopsies for these deaths.This profile documents Dilip’s personal experiences and outcomes and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Laos.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Improving the quality of cause of death statistics in Malaysia (Mohamad Fuad)

From February to March 2021, Mohamad Fuad from the Ministry of Health in Malaysia undertook a remote CRVS Fellowship through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative at University of Melbourne, looking to improve the quality of cause of death statistics in Malaysia. This profile documents Mohamad Fuad’s personal experiences and outcomes, and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in in Malaysia.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Improving the quality of external cause of death data in Brazil

From September to November 2019, Adauto Soares Filho from the Brazil Ministry of Health undertook a Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, analysing the performance of a new Form for the Investigation of Deaths from External Causes. This profile provides an overview of country context in relation to CRVS, and documents Adauto’s personal experiences, outcomes and the broader impact his Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Brazil.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Introducing automated verbal autopsy in Nepal

From September to October 2019, Suresh Mehata from the Ministry of Health and Population and Dibakar Sharma from the Health Directorate in Nepal undertook a Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Fellowship at the University of Melbourne (UoM), learning how to introduce automated verbal autopsy (VA) to the routine death registration system in Nepal. This profile provides an overview of country context in relation to CRVS, and documents Suresh and Dibakar’s personal experiences and outcomes and the broader impact their Fellowships might have on strengthening CRVS in Nepal.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Investigating garbage codes to improve mortality statistics in Brazil

Between January and February 2018, Raquel Barbosa de Lima, from the Department of Health Situation Analysis, Ministry of Health, Brazil, came to the University of Melbourne to receive support in analysing data from a pilot study that investigated key attributes of deaths with ‘garbage codes’.

CRVS Fellowship profile: SmartVA and ANACONDA improvement in China

This profile provides an overview of country context in relation to civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS), and documents Dr Jinlei Qi's personal fellowship experiences and outcomes and the broader impact her Fellowship might have on improving the quality of mortality data in China.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Strengthening civil registration processes and improving vital statistics in Rwanda

Between February and May 2018, Xavier Ngomituje, a statistician from the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda, came to the University of Melbourne to learn about measuring the completeness of death registration, in order to improve national mortality statistics. He then spent time at the Swiss Tropical and Health Institute, University of Basel, to analyse and strengthen the organisation, processes, work flows and functionality of the civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system of Rwanda.

CRVS Fellowship profile: Understanding patterns and trends in mortality in Shanghai

From January to March 2019, Dr Chen Lei from Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention (SCDC) came to the University of Melbourne to receive support in analysing medical records reviews and analysis of verbal autopsy (VA) data. This fellowship profile documents Chen Lei’s experiences whilst at Melbourne, including what she worked on, what she learned, and what impact this might have on improving the quality of mortality data in Shanghai.

CRVS Fellowship report: A national verbal autopsy scale-up strategy for Tanzania

Between February and March 2020, David Lenga from the Ministry of Health in Tanzania, completed a CRVS Fellowship funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative at the University of Melbourne to develop a national strategy for scaling up verbal autopsy in Tanzania. This report outlines the proposed strategy and discusses strategies to ensure sustainability and mitigate potential challenges.

CRVS Fellowship report: A strategy to improve death notification and community cause of death information in Lao PDR

Between February and March 2020, Dilip Hensman, Technical Officer for Health Information Systems from the World Health Organization in Lao PDR, completed a CRVS Fellowship to develop a strategy for improving death notification and implementing a pilot rollout of automated verbal autopsy in Lao PDR. This report outlines a proposed strategy for the Ministry of Health in Lao PDR to receive notifications of deaths occurring outside of health facilities, and to integrate the use of automated verbal autopsy to improve cause of death statistics for community deaths.

CRVS Fellowship report: An analysis of cause of death data from Papua New Guinea

Between October and December 2017, Ila Rouka and Elizabeth Mathias from the National Department of Health, Papua New Guinea (PNG), came to the University of Melbourne to analyse medical certificates of cause of death. As well as investigating the patterns and trends in mortality for the country between 2016 and 2017, the fellows were interested in assessing the quality of the certificates themselves. This CRVS fellowship report outlines key findings from their work.

CRVS Fellowship report: Analysis of causes of death in Myanmar using verbal autopsies

This CRVS Fellowship Report provides an overview of the CRVS system in Myanmar, including the implementation of verbal autopsy, and provides summary results of causes of deaths using verbal autopsy and hospital data from 14 townships collected from January to December 2017, contrasted with Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results for Myanmar.

CRVS Fellowship report: Assessing the quality of medical certification in Bangladesh

Dr Mohammad Adnan Khan, from the Directorate General of Health Services, Bangladesh came to the University of Melbourne to analyse the quality of medical certification from four pilot hospitals who had implemented the International Form of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death in 2017 as part of D4H. This report provides an overview of his findings, including the cost common errors in the certificates and recommendations to improve the quality of mortality data.

CRVS Fellowship report: Developing a CRVS-VA management dashboard

This summary Fellowship report highlights key features of the CRVS-VA management dashboard that was developed by Patrick Larbi-Debrah from the Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation department of Ghana Health Service, as part of his time at the Universities of Melbourne and Basel. The dashboard is a user-friendly tool that provides real-time monitoring of summary statistics from VA interviews.

CRVS Fellowship report: Evaluation of the 'Kaliganj Model' for proactive birth and death notification and registration

As a part of establishing a functional CRVS system in Bangladesh, the Kaliganj Model for birth and death registration was implemented from April 2016 to December 2017 in the Kaliganj sub-district. In this model, health and family planning field staff notified local registries at union council of births and deaths using a standard operating procedure. This document reports on research that aimed to understand if and how the Kaliganj Model improved birth and death notification and registration. This report provides policy-makers in the Government of Bangladesh with research findings, insights and recommendations, so they can begin solidifying CRVS in the country

CRVS Fellowship report: Generating complete and accurate mortality statistics in Myanmar

From September to October 2019, Dr May Thu Zaw from the Ministry of Health and Sports in Myanmar undertook a Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Fellowship through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative at the University of Melbourne, assessing the completeness of mortality data generated from hospitals. This Fellowship report provides an overview of the CRVS system in Myanmar, and details May’s investigation of signed and left cases in three hospitals in Myanmar.

CRVS Fellowship report: Implementing verbal autopsy in Ghana

Between January and March 2018, Mr Francis Yeji, from the Policy, Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the Ghana Health Service, spent time at the Universities of Basel and Melbourne to analyse results from the verbal autopsy pre-test conducted in Ghana in 2017. This CRVS fellowship report describes the approach to verbal autopsy implementation used by Ghana, results from the pre-test in the Bongo District and implications this has for future phases, and how the results were used to inform the sampling strategy for Ghana, as part of national scale-up.

CRVS Fellowship report: Integrating verbal autopsy in routine mortality surveillance in Bangladesh

In 2018, Dr Mir Saiful Islam, from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Bangladesh, came to the University of Melbourne as part of the D4H Fellowship program. This fellowship report describes the patterns of cause of death in Bangladesh, as derived through the process of verbal autopsy (VA). It also assesses the plausibility of the VA data by comparing it with other sources of mortality data available in the country. Finally, the report provides an overview of the experiences of VA interviewers and supervisors.

CRVS Fellowship report: Introducing routine verbal autopsy as part of the CRVS system in Rwanda

Between February and May 2018, Marc Hagenimana from the Rwanda Biomedical Centre came to the University of Melbourne to review and document experiences in introducing routine VA as part of CRVS system-strengthening in Rwanda. His study aimed to generate valuable evidence on the lessons learned, and inform stakeholders on the sustainability and scalability of the program. This report describes changes in the notification and registration of deaths after the introduction of VA, and assesses the plausibility of mortality data provided through VA.

CRVS Fellowship report: Patterns and trends in Rwandan hospital mortality data, 2017-2018

Between May and August 2018, Patrick Nshimiyimana from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda came to the University of Melbourne to analyse cause of death data collected over 12 months from a selected number of hospitals and health facilities. This report highlights key findings from his research, including patterns and trends in causes of death, as well as how the data compare with other sources of mortality data.

CRVS Fellowship report: Proposal for the introduction of routine verbal autopsy in Nepal to generate reliable cause of death data at the sub-national and national levels

Between September to October 2019, Suresh Mehata from the Ministry of Social Development in Biratnagar, Nepal, and Dibakar Sharma from the Ministry of Social Development in Pokhara, Nepal, completed a CRVS Fellowship funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative at the University of Melbourne to develop a proposal for introducing automated verbal autopsy in Nepal. This report outlines the proposed strategy for a pilot rollout of automated VA in Nepal across an 18-month period.

CRVS Fellowship report: SmartVA and DHIS2 integration in Sri Lanka

Between July and September 2018, Chamika Senanayake, from the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine came to the University of Melbourne to receive support in developing a SmartVA DHIS2 integration platform that would streamline all manual CRVS data flow processes into a single automated process in Sri Lanka. This report describes the technical process Chamika developed, which includes five main steps: setting up a DHIS2 instance and testing; analysing org-unit hierarchies; importing VA metadata; configuring the script; and localising the ODK Collect form.