This training course on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Systems has been prepared by the International Statistics Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The course is intended to provide information to epidemiologists, statisticians, demographers, and others working in public health about vital statistics data gathered from a national civil registration system. Even though CRVS systems may differ somewhat from country to country, there are internationally accepted principles and recommendations for national CRVS systems. Accordingly, 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 does not cover the detailed legal and administrative issues that would be of use to persons working in a country’s office of civil registration. Instead, a general overview is provided about the civil registration process with emphasis on issues that are related to vital statistics data collection.
