Commentary
Opportunities and challenges for verbal autopsy in the national Death Registration System in Sri Lanka: past and future
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* Corresponding author: Samath D Dharmaratne samath20@gmail.com
1 Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
2 Registrar General's Department, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Population Health Metrics 2011, 9:21 doi:10.1186/1478-7954-9-21
Published: 1 August 2011First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
Analyses of cause of death (COD) statistics are fundamental for monitoring the health situation of populations and for planning suitable interventions. The accuracy of national COD statistics is important for reliably prioritizing health problems in order to decide upon interventions and for resource allocation. The completeness of registration in the Death Registration System (DRS), which is a major component of the Civil Registration System (CRS) of Sri Lanka, is above 90% [1]. However, the quality of COD statistics are deficient, with 30% of deaths categorized as being due to "signs, symptoms, and ill-defined causes" [2]. Deaths coded to these categories are of little use for decision-making. There is considerable potential for verbal autopsy to complement the DRS to improve the quality of COD statistics in Sri Lanka [3].