Moving from medical to health systems classifications of deaths: extending verbal autopsy to collect information on the circumstances of mortality.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Verbal autopsy (VA) is a health surveillance technique used in low and middle-income countries to establish medical causes of death (CODs) for people who die outside hospitals and/or without registration. By virtue of the deaths it investigates, VA is also an opportunity to examine social exclusion from access to health systems. The aims were to develop a system to collect and interpret information on social and health systems determinants of deaths investigated in VA.

Methods

A short set of questions on care pathways, circumstances and events at and around the time of death were developed and integrated into the WHO 2012 short form VA (SF-VA). Data were subsequently analysed from two census rounds in the Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance Site (H

SUBMITTER: D'Ambruoso L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5675065 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature