Death registration system and classification of its causes in Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, 2017
Countries need to know how many people are born and die each year – and the main causes of their deaths – in order to have well-functioning health systems. The only way to count everyone and to track all births and deaths is through civil registration. Civil registration provides the basis for individual legal identity but also allows countries to identify their most pressing health issues. WHO receives cause-of-death statistics regularly from about 100 Member States. However, globally, two-thirds (38 million) of 56 million annual deaths are still not registered and every year, almost half of the world’s children go unregistered (1).
Death registration system and classification of its causes in Zahedan University of Medical Sciences in 2017
Report from: ZAUMS, Vice Chancellor for Health, Department of Health Statistics
Published on: 14 April 2018
Countries need to know how many people are born and die each year - and the main causes of their deaths - in order to have well-functioning health systems. The only way to count everyone and to track all births and deaths is through civil registration. Civil registration provides the basis for individual legal identity but also allows countries to identify their most pressing health issues. WHO receives cause-of-death statistics regularly from about 100 Member States. However, globally, two-thirds (38 million) of 56 million annual deaths are still not registered and every year, almost half of the world"s children go unregistered (1).
Currently, the National Organization for Civil Registration (NOCR) and the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOH&ME) operate death registration systems (2). Among the available data provided by health information systems, data on mortality are commonly used not only as health indicators but also as socioeconomic development indices. Recognizing that in Iran accurate data on causes of death were not available, the Deputy of Health in the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOH&ME) established a new comprehensive system for death registration which started in one province (Bushehr) as a pilot in 1997, and was subsequently expanded to include all other provinces, except Tehran province. These data can be used to investigate the nature and extent of differences in mortality in Iran (3).
The Iranian Vital Horoscope (VH) is another mortality and population source that operates in rural areas. Rural health workers (behvarz) conduct periodic censuses and household visits to record information in family files. A notice pinned to the wall of each Health House (the basic primary health-care unit, covering between one and four villages) displays this up-to-date information on the number of births, deaths and population and family planning activities within the rural community (2).
The main shortcomings of the death registration system are failure to register or inaccurate registration of death events. Solving these problems requires an integrated death registration system, to be developed and launched (4).
Similarly, in Zahedan University of Medical Sciences the data related to the all deaths that occur in the population are collected using the linear forms that collates the death certificates. The data are collected from the comprehensive urban and rural health centers, National Civil Registration Organization, the provincial branch, , Official cemeteries. The collected data will be classified based on the International Classification of Diseases 10 coding system. Then, the mortality data, will be analyzed by the Vice Chancellor for Health, Department of Health Statistics. The discrepancies and ambiguities will be reported in the form of statistical feedback to the affiliated districts. The Department of Health Statistics will actively follow those reports to improve the quality and quantity of data.
The mortality data are regularly analyzed and public health indicators, such as life expectancy and some adult and children mortality rates, are calculated by the Health Statistics Management and Information Technology and is used in health planning and policy making.
Here, we report the analysis of the ZAUMS mortality data for 2017.
Figure 1- The frequency of deaths recorded in ZAUMS Death Registration System, 2017 (n=7158)
Figure 2- The proportion of ZAUMS mortality by causes of death, 2017
Figure 3- The proportion of ZAUMS mortality by causes of death and age groups, 2017
Copyright © 2018 Zahedan University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved. Date Updated: 14/04/2018
Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us on: zu.healthdeputy@gmail.com
References:
1. World Health Organization. Civil registration: why counting births and deaths is important 2014 [cited 2018]. Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs324/en/.
2. Khosravi A, Taylora R, Naghavib M, Lopez AD. Mortality in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1964-2004. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2007;85(8):569-648.
3. Khosravi A, Taylor R, Naghavi M, Lopez AD. Differential mortality in Iran. Population Health Metrics. 2007;5(1):7.
4. Majidi M, Ghaemi S, Javaezi M, Delirrad M. A Study on Human Mortalities & Death Registration System in West Azerbaijan Province of Iran. Iranian Journal of Forensic Medicine. 2016;22(3):193-202.
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