Author: The University of Melbourne
Publication date: November 2016
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Medical certification of cause of death: Essential Resource Kit for countries
This CRVS action guide describes the importance of training and education for physicians on medical death certification.
Author: The University of Melbourne
Publication date: November 2016
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Medical certification of cause of death: Essential Resource Kit for countries
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.
Authors: Bo, S K, Firth S M, Hudson, S
Publication date: August 2020
Resource type: CRVS best practice and advocacy
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).
Author: Adair, T, Lopez, AD, Hudson, S
Publication date: June 2020
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
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.
Author: The University of Melbourne
Publication date: September 2020
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Medical certification of cause of death: Essential Resource Kit for countries; Verbal autopsy: Essential Resource Kit for countries
This paper is a useful resource for countries looking to implement automated VA on a digital tablet or smartphone.
Publication date: March 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Action guide on automated VA training and rollout
Civil registration should be the basis of any national identification system, and must be strengthened before new systems are put in place.
Publication date: October 2016
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Improving registration: Best practice guidelines
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.
Authors: Cobos Muñoz D, Sant Fruchtman C, Renggli S, de Savigny D
Publication date: March 2019
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: CRVS Costing Tool; CRVS Costing Tool: User guide; CRVS Costing Tool Report Template
Presentation of factors which countries should consider when establishing or improving the operation of their Office of the Civil Registrar.
Publication date: August 2017
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Understanding CRVS systems: The importance of process mapping
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.
Authors: Daniel Cobos Muñoz, Carmen Sant Fruchtman, and Don deSavigny, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel
Publication date: May 2019
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: A framework for evaluating national CRVS systems at baseline
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.
Publication date: September 2020
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Approaches and methods for estimating excess deaths due to COVID-19
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.
Author: Gamage, U S H, Chowdhury, H
Publication date: June 2020
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Outlines the importance of quality, and simple procedures for checking data quality from collection to analysis.
Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: March 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: ANACONDA 10 steps: Quick reference guide
This guidance document describes the five-step process for integrating data from medical certification of cause of death (MCCOD) for hospital deaths, and verbal autopsy (VA) data for community deaths to produce cause of death statistics for a population.
Authors: Firth, S, Adair, T, Lopez, A
Publication date: October 2020
Resource type: CRVS best practice and advocacy
Related resources: Guidance for assessing and interpreting the quality of mortality data using ANACONDA; Guidelines for interpreting verbal autopsy data
The automated process of using handheld devices for all verbal autopsy activities.
Author: The University of Melbourne
Publication date: November 2016
Resource type: CRVS best practice and advocacy
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.
Publication date: November 2016
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Action guide on process mapping for CRVS systems
Examples of best practice for registration include making it a legal requirement to register, and not charging a fee for initial registration.
Publication date: November 2016
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: CRVS systems need well-functioning civil registry offices
Transformation of information on death certificates into alpha-numeric codes, for easier analysis of the patterns of mortality in a population.
Publication date: November 2016
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Course prospectus: Iris automated mortality coding training
This document details the merits of automated VA methods and provides guidance for countries looking to implement VA in CRVS systems.
Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: June 2020 (update)
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Challenges associated with automated VA training and rollout
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.
Authors: The University of Melbourne
Publication date: May 2020
Resource type: CRVS best practice and advocacy
Related resources: SmartVA Auto-Analyse: User guide
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.
Authors: de Savigny D, Renggli S, Cobos D, Collinson M, Sankoh O
Publication date: March 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
The medical certification of cause of death (MCCOD) Resource Kit contains all of the key resources countries need to improve medical 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 cause of death certification; and c) evaluate the impact of cause of death certification training sessions on physician’s certification skills.
Author: The University of Melbourne
Publication date: August 2020
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Intervention: Medical certification of cause of death
Describes the new classification of 'unusable codes' that cause most harm, allowing countries to design targeted interventions for improvement.
Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: May 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Summary: Redefining 'garbage codes' for public health policy
This document identifies barriers to accurate COD reporting by physicians and provides recommendations on how various actors can respond.
Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: May 2018 (update)
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Action guide on reducing barriers to medical certification
This document outlines six of focus areas for countries in need of CRVS research.
Publication date: November 2017
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Summary: SDG achievement depends on CRVS systems
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.
Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: April 2018 (update)
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Action guide on improving the quality of cause of death data in hospitals
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.
Publication date: April 2018 (updated)
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Action guide on CRVS legal and regulatory reviews
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.
Publication date: February 2019
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: How useful are registered birth statistics for health and social policy? A global systematic assessment of the availability and quality of birth registration data
Explains a new method to estimate the completeness of death registration using widely available country data.
Publication date: May 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Estimating the completeness of death registration: An empirical method
This document highlights how countries that invest in CRVS strengthening will see improved population health outcomes.
Publication date: May 2018 (udpated)
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Are well functioning civil registration and vital statistics systems associated with better health outcomes?
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.
Publication date: August 2018 (update)
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Where there is no physician: Improving the notification of community deaths
Briefly explains the importance of data quality assessments and basic data quality checks to perform.
Publication date: February 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Course prospectus: ANACONDA
This document details how to sustainably integrate verbal autopsy into CRVS systems.
Publication date: April 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Integrating community-based verbal autopsy into CRVS: System-level considerations
Outlines six different areas of potential collaboration between health and demographic observatories and CRVS systems, including challenges and successes.
Publication date: November 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Maximising synergies between health observatories and CRVS: Guidance for INDEPTH HDSS sites and CRVS stakeholders
Partners: Swiss TPH, INDEPTH Network
Describes the alternative classification of garbage codes used in ANACONDA that better aligns with public health priorities.
Publication date: July 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Redefining 'garbage codes' for public health policy: Report on the expert group meeting, 27-28 February 2017
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.
Publication date: August 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Why the Sustainable Development Goal agenda needs strong civil registration and vital statistics systems
Highlights the importance of measuring registration completeness and the impact it has on fertility and mortality statistics.
Publication date: April 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Summary: A new method for estimating the completeness of death registration
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.
Publication date: February 2019
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Developing a verbal autopsy costing and budgeting tool; VA Costing Tool
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.
Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: July 2018 (updated)
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Summary: Effective strategies and approaches to training in medical certification
Explains how enterprise architecture and its process mapping methodology can be used to describe and improve CRVS systems.
Authors: de Savigny D, Cobos Muñoz D.
Publication date: April 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Action guide on process mapping for CRVS systems
Source: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel
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.
Authors: Tim Adair
Publication date: May 2020
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
This Resource Kit contains links to all of the key resources countries need for verbal autopsy implementation and data interpretation. It provides the key tools and guidance materials to help countries: a) prepare CRVS systems for verbal autopsy implementation; b) embed the necessary IT systems to facilitate verbal autopsy rollout; and, c) perform verbal autopsies and compile and interpret results for use by public health planners and decision-makers.
Author: The University of Melbourne
Publication date: August 2020
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Intervention: Automated verbal autopsy
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.
Authors: Nicola Richards, Renee Sorchik, and Claire Brolan, the University of Melbourne
Publication date: August 2018
Resource type: CRVS best-practice and advocacy
Related resources: Sustainable Development Goal achievement will depend on CRVS systems