The present set of Principles and Recommendations provides guidance on establishing a functioning system for collecting, processing and disseminating vital statistics; improving sources of vital statistics, primarily the functioning of the civil registration system and its components; and the role of complementary sources of vital statistics, such as population censuses, household surveys and public-health records.
The present publication provides an extensive examination of the role of population registers in the context of both vital statistics and civil registration. Building on its predecessors, it also includes a comprehensive consideration of the role of health institutions in the context of both vital statistics gathering and functioning of civil registration; contains a revised list of core and non-core topics for vital statistics; and updates relevant international classifications used in the context of the vital statistics system.