Commentary
Whither verbal autopsy?
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Correspondence: Peter Byass peter.byass@epiph.umu.se
Umeå Centre for Global Health Research, Umeå University, 90187 Umeå, Sweden
MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Population Health Metrics 2011, 9:23 doi:10.1186/1478-7954-9-23
Published: 1 August 2011First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
Wherever the field of verbal autopsy (VA) may be heading, the exciting and considerable extent of new work presented in this Population Health Metrics series clearly shows that the topic is not withering. The Global Congress on Verbal Autopsy held in Bali in February 2011 undoubtedly marked a significant milestone: VA has come of age as an area of scientific interest in its own right. We may, however, be at something of a tipping point in that most of the work over the past few decades has (perhaps largely unconsciously) concentrated on presenting VA (usually interpreted by physicians) as a second-best substitute for medical certification of cause of death, particularly for application in areas where routine certification is either practiced selectively or not required [1]. However, it now emerges that medical certification of death is not as reliable as is often assumed, and physicians are also not particularly good at interpreting VA data consistently and reliably [2]. We have also learned that evaluations of cause-specific mortality are generally compromised by a lack of true gold standard data and metrics for comparative purposes [3,4]. At the same time, the dominance of research domains in VA applications is partly giving way to concepts of using VA in more routine ways, at least as an interim strategy in countries where universal routine death certification remains some way off. These perceived needs, coupled with new methodological developments, offer exciting prospects.