Commentary
Verbal autopsy and global mortality statistics: if not now, then when?
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Correspondence: Philip W Setel philip.setel@gatesfoundation.org
Measurement Learning and Evaluation for Global Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PO Box 23350, Seattle, WA 98102, USA
Population Health Metrics 2011, 9:20 doi:10.1186/1478-7954-9-20
Published: 27 July 2011First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
More than a decade ago, the World Health Organization pointed out the degree to which deficits in the production, sharing, and use of critical health information hampered evidence-based health development in countries with the poorest health status [1]. This "information paradox" in global health came to refer to the predicament in which countries with the greatest need for timely, accurate, and comprehensive health information - including on causes of death at the population level - have had the least access to it [2,3]. Since that time, some (but not enough) improvements in information systems and technologies have begun to fill voids in our knowledge of population health [4,5]. Throughout this period, however, comparatively little attention has been paid to advancing the science and practice of direct measurement of mortality and its causes - particularly among adults [6-11].