Churches and the government come together in the Solomon Islands
Representatives from the member churches of the Solomon Islands Christian Association (SICA) met with officials from the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for a workshop on improving death registration led by University of Melbourne Data for Health.
Read our latest edition of More than Numbers!
We wrap up our collective achievements over the past four years of the initiative, share accounts of verbal autopsy work in the field, in-depth interviews with our colleagues in Brazil, Colombia and Myanmar and talk to our Fellows about what they are excited to learn.
CRVS strengthening in Sri Lanka
Although largely manual, the Sri Lankan registration system manages to register most births and deaths. However it is slow in compiling data from all the registration points, coding cause of death data, and releasing vital statistics. Sri Lankan CRVS experts weigh in on how the country is improving their system as part of the Data for Health Initiative.
CRVS strengthening in Myanmar
Myanmar has made great progress in strengthening civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS). In order to maximise the impact of CRVS on improved population health and the prevention of premature death and disability, the government requires accurate, reliable, timely, and complete information on birth and death registration, including data on cause of death (COD).
CRVS strengthening in Bangladesh
Before Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative launched in Bangladesh, there was very little information on who was dying of what, which is needed to guide public health policies and plans. Watch videos with Bangladesh's CRVS stakeholders on how the country is working to strengthen their CRVS system and improve their cause of death data.
Zambia's death coverage climbs with Data for Health
Zambia's rate of death registration coverage has been low as a result of the law that requires all deaths that are registered to have a cause. The Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative in Zambia is using verbal autopsy methods to count deaths that occur outside of health settings, in order to get a better understanding of who is dying of what in the country, which will better inform preventative health policies and plans.
CRVS strengthening in Tanzania
Tanzania has demonstrated an increased commitment to civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system improvement, as reflected in its five-year country CRVS strategy (2015 to 2020). However, key stakeholders and governance mechanisms for CRVS are poorly linked, resulting in incomplete and inadequate data sources for informing policy-making. Watch videos with Tanzania's CRVS stakeholders on how the country is working to strengthen their CRVS system and improve their cause of death data.
Meeting on strengthening the quality of information on causes of death in Brazil
The objective of the meeting was to discuss the improvement of the quality of the information on causes of death in Brazil, with the participation of the three spheres of government, civil society, universities, and international institutions. This report summarises the main outcomes of the meeting, including each of the main sessions, comments from participants, and links to additional resources.
Fellow wins Commonwealth Digital Health Award
Congratulations to University of Melbourne Data for Health Fellow Dr Chamika Senanayake for winning a Commonwealth Digital Health Award in Colombo, Sri Lanka in the category of health promotion and health education for his work on SmartVA DHIS2 integration.
Fellowship profile: Developing a qualitative study protocol on VA interviewer experiences in Myanmar
Between November 2016 and February 2017 Ms Tun Zin Mar, from the Central Statistical Office came to the University of Melbourne to develop a framework of analysis for a qualitative study to learn about the experiences of verbal autopsy interviewers during the initial phases of implementation.
New- 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.
New- Colombia: A strategy to improve the registration and certification of vital events in rural and ethnic communities
This paper details Colombia’s strategy to increase the registration and certification of vital events in rural municipalities and ethnic communities. Key parts of this intervention involve developing a proactive search system to improve capture of vital events through mobile notification, and subsequently applying automated verbal autopsy to determine probable cause of community-based deaths.
Ghana: Developing a CRVS-VA management dashboard
This 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.
New- Summary: Monitoring CRVS data quality and progress
This new resource summarises key points from the Lancet series paper, which discussed results from a global assessment of CRVS systems, and the development of a composite index, the Vital Statistics Performance Index (VSPI) that can monitor data quality and progress over time.
Building momentum
With the increasing capabilities of technology to bring together scientists who were once separated geographically or by different disciplines, we now have the ability to track and estimate disease, injuries and risk factors down to the specifics, and with a level of accuracy that we couldn’t have imagined before.
New web resource supports country improvement of critical health data
The CRVS Knowledge Gateway developed by the University of Melbourne, provides technical tools and information that countries can use to improve birth and death data, with the ultimate goal to support their citizens to live longer, healthier lives.
Innovation collaboration with Swiss TPH
The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute at the University of Basel is the University of Melbourne’s collaborator for the BD4H Initiative, developing CRVS tools and filling knowledge and methods gaps in order to provide technical assistance to countries.
Fellowship profile – from Shanghai to Melbourne
In order to build capacity to strengthen CRVS systems in countries involved in the BD4H, six to eight fellows from the project's countries are trained a year on CRVS systems and work on a project with direct application to BD4H activities in their country.
Building skills in data quality assessments in the Philippines
Access to reliable and timely mortality and cause of death statistics is essential for monitoring trends in diseases, injuries and risk factors, and critically important to guide good public health policy and prevention. Training in ANACONDA will build this capacity in the Philippines, enabling them to identify inconsistencies and errors in their mortality datasets and subsequently improve the quality of their mortality statistics.
Melbourne boot camp to bolster world-wide vital statistics
Country coordinators from Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, Myanmar, Peru, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tanzania and Zambia attended a CRVS boot camp organised by Bloomberg Data for Health partners, the University of Melbourne and Vital Strategies.
University of Virginia Fellow Visits Data for Health
“Estimating and analysing the distribution of causes of death in rural areas of the world may not sound as sexy as ground-breaking surgery techniques, but it has the potential to save millions of lives. Our research will help inform health policy in underdeveloped regions of the world,” Riley said.
Myanmar: Strengthening data
Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative researchers Professor Alan Lopez, Dr Tim Adair, Sonja Firth and Nicola Richards travelled to Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, in early August to assist with strengthening the local civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system.
