The International Statistics Program at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has developed a training course on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems to provide information to epidemiologists, statisticians, demographers, and others working in public health about vital statistics data gathered from a national civil registration system. The course contains a general description of the administrative process of civil registration and fundamentals of vital statistics generated from a national civil registration system. The intent is to provide background information for persons using vital statistics data so they understand: how those data are obtained, ways to use and disseminate the data, and some problems and limitations of the data. The course provides a general overview of the civil registration process with emphasis on issues that are related to vital statistics data collection.