The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) defines civil registration as the continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events pertaining to the population, as provided through decree or regulation in accordance with the legal requirements in each country. Civil registration is the best source of vital statistics since it constitutes the collection of statistics on vital events in a lifetime of a person as well as relevant characteristics of the events themselves and of the person and persons concerned.

Articles

In 2014, at the Sixty-seventh World Health Assembly, 194 Member States endorsed the Every Newborn: an action plan to end preventable deaths (Resolution WHA67.10), a road map of strategic actions to end preventable newborn mortality and stillbirths and contribute to reducing maternal mortality and morbidity. The Every Newborn Action Plan presents evidence-based solutions and sets out a clear path to 2020 with eight specific milestones for what needs to be done differently to greatly reduce mortality rates and improve maternal and newborn health by 2030.

This document aims to inform UNHCR staff about the relevance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to UNHCR’s statelessness mandate and the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness in 10 Years. It provides preliminary guidance on how UNHCR can contribute to the successful implementation of the SDGs, including through national planning processes, which in turn can help to achieve the goals of the #IBelong Campaign. The information in this document applies to refugees who are also stateless.

The workshop gathered African experts in mortality statistics collections together to collaborate on new technical guidance to be provided to countries for designing better mortality statistics systems; and to develop a pool of available experts to deploy to countries to support technical improvement and results in mortality data collections, especially for death registration, hospital deaths and integrating systems for community deaths.

The Population and Vital Statistics Report presents most recent data on population size (total, male and female) from the latest available census of the population, national official population estimates and the number and rate (births, deaths and infant deaths) for the latest available year within the past 15 years. It also presents United Nations estimates of the mid-year population of the world, and its major areas and regions.

Articles

Accurate cause of death (COD) information is fundamental to good public health practice. The principal sources of information are medical certificates of COD for deaths in hospitals and verbal autopsies for non-hospital deaths. A verbal autopsy (VA) is a process whereby relatives of the deceased respond to questions about the medical history and terminal illness of the decedent (i.e. the illness that led directly to death). These two sources of COD data are complementary.

This manual provides guidance for training on all aspects of conducting verbal autopsy (VA) using electronic collection methods. It covers the importance of VA for assigning cause of death for community deaths, the roles and responsibilities of VA interviewers and supervisors, ethics and sensitivity in conducting a VA interview, detailed review of the questions included in the four modules of the SmartVA questionnaire, and how to collect information using a tablet.

As part of the CRVS D4H Initiative, Sri Lanka is focused on improving the quality of mortality statistics. Through four prioritised interventions, CRVSsystem performance will be enhanced, leading to a significant shift in the quality of vital statistics.

As part of their commitment to introduce systemic improvements in a phased and scalable manner, Rwanda will implement two interventions as part of the CRVS D4H Initiative: improving notification and registration, and implementing verbal autopsy for community deaths. These interventions will contribute to the achievement of key objectives for the government.

As part of the CRVS D4H Initiative, Myanmar aims to increase the registration of deaths, improve the quality of cause of death data, and enhance understanding of the importance of civil registration. Combined, these activities will help to produce high-quality evidence for policy and planning.

Certification is the process doctors use to determine underlying cause of death. Improved certification practices ensure that decision-makers have accurate information on what people are dying from. Activities to improve certification include: establishing national mortality committees; introducing the international form of medical certificate of cause of death; training courses and curriculum.

Registration practices refer to all the actions that need to take place from the notification of an event, to its registration with the appropriate civil registry authorities, through to the issue of a certified document. Examples of best practice for birth and death registration include making it a legal requirement to register; no fee for registration; and clearly defining roles and responsibilities of various agents.

When people die at home or in areas without doctors, it is difficult to know what they died from. Verbal autopsy provides a systematic way of collecting information from close friends or family on the signs and symptoms of someone before they died to determine a probable cause of death.

This document provides guidance on how to improve the quality of cause of death data in hospitals, and will be useful for Ministry of Health staff, hospital administrators and managers, medical society officers, medical education leaders, and physicians. It will also be of interest to stakeholders involved in planning and strengthening civil registration and vital statistics systems, as it provides overall guidance on the steps required in improving hospital data.

Improving national capacity, skills and knowledge is a critical component of any strategy to strengthen a CRVS system. As part of the D4H Initiative, six training courses are available, with more under development. These courses are currently only open to those countries enrolled as part of the D4H Initiative.

Civil registration should be the basis of any national identification system, and must be strengthened before any identification systems are put in place.

The Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), Data for Health Initiative (D4H), at The University of Melbourne has developed an assessment tool to assess the quality of death certification practices through checking for the presence of common errors in death certificates. This can be used to assess the quality of death certification as part of routine assessment, or to assess the training needs of doctors in designing cause of death certification training.

During the two-day meeting, participants discussed: sustainable development challenges and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region; regional monitoring and review mechanisms; perspectives on the post-2015 development agenda and the sustainable development goals; the form and function of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development beyond 2015; and the transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the sustainable development goals. The Forum also showcased national examples and experiences in sustainable development, with a focus on integration of its three dimensions.

The publication explores the linkages between inequality and social protection. Overall, it argues that inequality, in its multiple forms, is on the rise in Asia and the Pacific, and is having an adverse impact on sustainable development.

The Roadmap articulates a shared strategic approach to support effective measurement and accountability systems for a country’s health programs. The Roadmap outlines smart investments that countries can adopt to strengthen basic measurement systems and to align partners and donors around common priorities. It offers a platform for development partners, technical experts, implementers, civil society organizations, and decision makers to work together for health measurement in the post-2015 era.