Advocating for change: how advocacy contributed to strengthened civil registration and vital statistics in Myanmar

In 2016, the government of Myanmar partnered with the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative to strengthen death registration practices in hospitals and communities. This report discusses the role of advocacy in the planning and delivery of this civil registration and vital statistics-strengthening intervention, focusing on the strategies and methods used, and outcomes produced.

Approaches and methods for estimating excess deaths due to COVID-19

This guidance document outlines the challenges, and introduces approaches and methods for researchers and statisticians to measure excess mortality due to COVID-19 in systems with various levels of registration completeness (high, medium and low).

Assessing birth and death data quality: Essential Resource Kit for countries

This Resource Kit contains all of the key resources countries need to assess the quality of the mortality data prior to analysing them for policy and monitoring purposes. It provides tools and guidance materials to help countries: a) assess the completeness and coverage of birth and death registration; b) assess the quality of mortality and COD data; and c) take steps to improve the quality of data based on the outcomes of these assessments.

Challenges associated with automated VA training and rollout

This paper is a useful resource for countries looking to implement automated VA on a digital tablet or smartphone.

Civil registration and identification

Civil registration should be the basis of any national identification system, and must be strengthened before new systems are put in place.

CRVS innovations: Developing and testing a CRVS Costing Tool

This CRVS technical outcome series paper describes the CRVS Costing Tool that has been developed as part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health (D4H) Initiative by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and the University of Melbourne.

CRVS systems need well-functioning civil registry offices

Presentation of factors which countries should consider when establishing or improving the operation of their Office of the Civil Registrar.

Essential CRVS processes and actors: Considerations for the Development of OpenCRVS

This technical report presents a further analysis of the summary experience of applying system analysis tools to complex systems like CRVS systems. This report is an effort to summarise and catalogue the most essential processes common to most CRVS processes in D4H countries, capturing also the different stakeholders involved and the data elements flowing through the system. This summary is of importance to efforts such as the development of OpenCRVS as it describes the most common processes that countries employ and indicates essential processes that need to be included in OpenCRVS.

Estimating excess deaths due to COVID-19 in countries with incomplete death registration: A quick reference guide

This quick reference guide summarises approaches and methods for researchers and statisticians to estimate excess mortality due to COVID-19, in countries with incomplete death registration.

ICD-11 and cause of death coding: useability and implications for Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative countries

This report provides a review of the general and specific features of ICD-11 as advised by the WHO during an ICD-11 training of trainers' course in Geneva in February 2020. The report discusses the useability of ICD-11 and implications for D4H countries, particularly regarding mortality coding.

Improving vital statistics for informed policy: The importance of data quality

Outlines the importance of quality, and simple procedures for checking data quality from collection to analysis.

Intervention: Automated verbal autopsy

The automated process of using handheld devices for all verbal autopsy activities.

Intervention: Improving CRVS system design

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a systems science tool that produces business process maps. It helps describe, understand, analyse, compare and visualise the organisation, processes, workflows and functionality of a CRVS system.

Intervention: Improving registration practices

Examples of best practice for registration include making it a legal requirement to register, and not charging a fee for initial registration.

Intervention: Medical certification of cause of death

Activities to improve certification include introducing the international form of medical certificate of cause of death and training courses.

Intervention: Mortality coding

Transformation of information on death certificates into alpha-numeric codes, for easier analysis of the patterns of mortality in a population.

Introducing verbal autopsies into CRVS systems: Guiding principles

This document details the merits of automated VA methods and provides guidance for countries looking to implement VA in CRVS systems.

Introduction to SmartVA for Physicians

This document provides an overview of the automated verbal autopsy tool, SmartVA for Physicians (also known as SmartVA Auto-Analyse), and describes a pilot implementation of the tool in the Philippines.

Maximising synergies between Health Observatories and CRVS

This report provides practical guidance about how population and health observatories and CRVS systems can collaborate, to ultimately improve the registration and certification of births, deaths, and causes of death.

Medical certification of cause of death: Essential Resource Kit for countries

The MCCOD Resource Kit contains all of the key resources countries need to improve death certification and coding. It provides the key tools and guidance materials to help countries: a) assess the most common certification errors being made; b) train physicians in correct COD certification; and c) evaluate the impact of these training sessions on physician’s certification skills.

Redefining 'garbage codes' for public health policy: Report on the expert group meeting

Describes the new classification of 'unusable codes' that cause most harm, allowing countries to design targeted interventions for improvement.

Reducing barriers to the accurate medical certification of cause of death

This document identifies barriers to accurate COD reporting by physicians and provides recommendations on how various actors can respond.

Research priorities for country CRVS strengthening

This document outlines six of focus areas for countries in need of CRVS research.

Strategies for improving the quality of cause of death data in hospitals

This paper outlines the importance of accurate medical certification of cause of death, and provides eight strategies that hospitals can implement to improve the accuracy and consistency of cause of death data drawn from medical records.

Strengthening CRVS systems through effective legislation

This paper explains how legal frameworks can contribute to the completeness of birth and death registration, and improve the accuracy of information held in national and subnational civil records. This paper also highlights some of the common issues with existing civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) laws in many countries, and the importance for governments and CRVS stakeholders to conduct a comprehensive legal review. General recommendations on the steps and strategies countries should use for conducting a legal review on existing CRVS-related laws are provided.

Summary: A global systematic assessment of the availability and quality of birth registration data

Explains the global birth registration database and quality metric, the Vital Statistics Performance Index for Births (VSPI-B), developed to assess the completeness and quality of birth registration data. The database and index together can help enable the tracking of the performance of registration systems over time and between countries and can be of great use for monitoring progress for global and national development goals.

Summary: A new method for estimating the completeness of death registration

Explains a new method to estimate the completeness of death registration using widely available country data.

Summary: CRVS systems are good for your health

This document highlights how countries that invest in CRVS strengthening will see improved population health outcomes.

Summary: Improving the notification of community deaths

Notification of deaths, particularly deaths in the community, requires special attention and will likely need specific interventions tailored to each country. Two checklists have been developed for countries seeking to audit and improve internal notification of community deaths.

Summary: Improving vital statistics for informed policy

Briefly explains the importance of data quality assessments and basic data quality checks to perform.

Summary: Integrating verbal autopsies into CRVS systems

This document details how to sustainably integrate verbal autopsy into CRVS systems.

Summary: Maximising synergies between health observatories and CRVS systems

Outlines six different areas of potential collaboration between health and demographic observatories and CRVS systems, including challenges and successes.

Summary: Redefining 'garbage codes' for public health policy

Describes the alternative classification of garbage codes used in ANACONDA that better aligns with public health priorities.

Summary: SDG achievement depends on CRVS systems

Well-functioning civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems will play an important role in assisting countries and regions to measure, monitor and meet their Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. Strengthening of CRVS systems is an SDG outcome in and of itself; therefore, to fully achieve the SDG agenda, CRVS systems must be robust with near-complete registration of births and deaths.

Summary: The importance of routinely measuring birth and death registration completeness

Highlights the importance of measuring registration completeness and the impact it has on fertility and mortality statistics.

Summary: Understanding the VA costing and budgeting tool

A VA costing and budgeting tool has been developed to help determine the financial and economic costs of implementing routine VA, based on six activity groups: start-up activities, governance activities, program management, supervision, refresher training, VA delivery and analysis.

Training and education on medical certification: Effective strategies and approaches

This document outlines a best-practice plan for the timing and content of education and training on medical certification for physicians at three career stages.

Understanding CRVS systems: The importance of process mapping

Explains how enterprise architecture and its process mapping methodology can be used to describe and improve CRVS systems.

Understanding uncertainty in ANACONDA results due to small numbers of deaths: Guidance for users

This document provides guidance to ANACONDA users to help inform decisions on the appropriate number of deaths necessary to have confidence in ANACONDA results for a population or sub-population.

Verbal autopsy: Essential Resource Kit for countries

This Resource Kit contains links to all of the key resources countries need for VA implementation and data interpretation. It provides the key tools and guidance materials to help countries: a) prepare CRVS systems for VA implementation; b) embed the necessary IT systems to facilitate VA rollout; and, c) perform VAs and compile and interpret results for use by public health planners and decision-makers.

Why the Sustainable Development Goal agenda needs strong civil registration and vital statistics systems

Well-functioning CRVS systems will play an important role in assisting countries and regions to measure, monitor and meet their SDG targets. The SDG agenda presents an opportunity to advance health information systems world-wide, including through CRVS systems strengthening efforts. The Data for Health Initiative developed a number of interventions, described in this paper, aimed at improving various components of a CRVS system. Countries may wish to consider these as part of their CRVS systems strengthening efforts.