Abbreviated Name:
Deaths registration coverage
Indicator Name:
Deaths registration coverage
Domain:
Health System Response/ Health Information system
Related Terms:
Civil registration system
Definition:
Percentage of deaths that are registered (with age and sex).
Measurment Method:
Questions about presence of a death certificate are asked for all recent deaths (e.g. in the last year) The numerator is generated from a count of all registered deaths as reported by civil or sample registration systems, hospitals and community-based reporting systems. The denominator is derived by a count of all deaths for the same time period and geographical region. In some cases, such as most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, information on total deaths is not available because of incomplete civil registration. In such instances, deaths have to be estimated by extrapolating data from censuses using demographic techniques or based on information about mortality rates derived from population-based surveys. Although civil registration systems are essential, complementary approaches to complete civil registration are needed to respond to the demand for timely information and to assess the performance of the systems themselves. WHO, in collaboration with partners, is stepping up efforts to improve the quality of data that underlies its overall estimates of mortality by age, gender and cause. Such efforts include making better use of household surveys and censuses, implementing standardized verbal autopsy instruments and using data from partial civil registration and sources other than civil registration.
Numerator:
Number of deaths registered
Denominator
Total number of deaths
Estimation method:
WHO estimates coverage by dividing the total number of deaths that have been registered with cause-of-death information in the vital registration system for a country-year by the total estimated deaths for that year for the national population
Disaggregation:
Gender, location (urban / rural), wealth quintile, boundaries: administrative and health regions
Primary data sources:
Civil registration or sample registration system
Alternate data sources:
Civil registration and vital statistics systems
Measurment frequency:
Annual
