Birth attendants as perinatal verbal autopsy respondents in low- and middle-income countries: a viable alternative?

Engmann, Cyril; Garcés, Ana; Jehan, Imtiaz; Ditekemena, John; Phiri, Mutinta; Thorsten, Vanessa; Mazariegos, Manolo; Chomba, Elwyn; Pasha, Omrana; Tshefu, Antoinette; Wallace, Dennis; McClure, Elizabeth M; Goldenberg, Renato; Carlo, Waldemar F.; Wright, Larry L.; Bose, Carl

doi:10.2471/blt.11.092452

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…One study looked at the potential of using birth attendants, instead of grieving mothers, as VA respondents in perinatal deaths (Engmann et al, 2012). If this is deemed appropriate, consent should still be sought from the mother, and potentially the head of the household.…”

Section: (Ii) the Interviewer: Qualifications And Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

New challenges for verbal autopsy: Considering the ethical and social implications of verbal autopsy methods in routine health information systems

Gouda

Flaxman

Brolan

et al. 2017

Social Science & Medicine

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Verbal autopsy (VA) methods are designed to collect cause-of-death information from populations where many deaths occur outside of health facilities and where death certification is weak or absent. A VA consists of an interview with a relative or carer of a recently deceased individual in order to gather information on the signs and symptoms the decedent presented with prior to death. These details are then used to determine and assign a likely cause-of-death. At a population level this information can be invaluable to help guide prioritisation and direct health policy and services. To date VAs have largely been restricted to research contexts but many countries are now venturing to incorporate VA methods into routine civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems. Given the sensitive nature of death, however, there are a number of ethical, legal and social issues that should be considered when scaling-up VAs, particularly in the cross-cultural and socio-economically disadvantaged environments in which they are typically applied. Considering each step of the VA process this paper provides a narrative review of the social context of VA methods. Harnessing the experiences of applying and rolling out VAs as part of routine CRVS systems in a number of low and middle income countries, we identify potential issues that countries and implementing institutions need to consider when incorporating VAs into CRVS systems and point to areas that could benefit from further research and deliberation.

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Section: (Ii) the Interviewer: Qualifications And Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

New challenges for verbal autopsy: Considering the ethical and social implications of verbal autopsy methods in routine health information systems

Gouda

Flaxman

Brolan

et al. 2017

Social Science & Medicine

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“…For stillbirths, concordance across all questions was 93%; concordance was 95% or greater for more than half of the questions on birth attendance, site of delivery and stillborn characteristics; more than 60% of the questions had a sensitivity of at least 80%, and more than 80% had a specificity of at least 90%. Overall, cause of death established through verbal autopsy were similar, regardless of respondent [33].…”

Section: Methods Of Validating Verbal Autopsy Datamentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Regarding administrative challenges to undertaking vital events registration, many articles mentioned geographic factors as barriers. These geographic factors included low population density, large geographic catchment areas, increasing distance from a HEW station, and long distances between houses [16,24,30,31,33,38,39]. Migration of the community was also noted as a challenge in areas in which there is a nomadic population or in cases in which the effect of migration within the community is not clear [24,34].…”

Section: Factors Impacting Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

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A systematic review of vital events tracking by community health agents

Nichols

Ragunanthan

et al. 2019

Global Health Action

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Background: Efforts to improve national civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems are focusing on transforming traditionally passive systems into active systems that have the ability to reach the household level. While community health agents remain at the core of many birth and death reporting efforts, previous literature has not explored elements for their successful integration into CRVS efforts. Objective: To inform future efforts to improve CRVS systems, we conducted a systematic review of literature to understand and describe the design features, resulting data quality, and factors impacting the performance of community health agents involved in tracking vital events. Methods: We reviewed 393 articles; reviewers extracted key information from 58 articles meeting the eligibility criteria: collection of birth and/or death information outside of a clinic environment by a community agent. Reviewers recorded information in an Excel database on various program aspects, and results were summarized into key themes and topic areas. Results: The majority of articles described work in rural areas of Africa or South-East Asia. Nearly all articles (86%) cited some form of household visitation by community health agents. Only one article described a process in which vital events tracking activities were linked to official vital events registers. Other factors commonly described included program costs, relationship of community agents to community, and use of mobile devices. About 1/3 of articles reported quantitative information on performance and quality of vital events data tracked; various methods were described for measuring completeness of reporting, which varied greatly across articles. Conclusions: The multitude of articles on this topic attests to the availability of community health agents to track vital events. Creating a programmatic norm of integrating with CRVS systems the vital events information collected from existing community health programs has the potential to provide governments with information essential for public health decision-making. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…For each clinical trial conducted, there has a combination of health workers in the field using train-the-trainer models (Table 4). Training in health interventions has included neonatal resuscitation, birth attendant training in active management of third stage of labor, accurate data collection and reporting by the pregnancy and birth registry administrators, assessment of gestational age in pregnancy using tools and materials developed and validated by investigators [39], use of Doptone for fetal heart detection, care and feeding of the low birth weight/preterm infant [40], use of ultrasound to detect pregnancy complications [41], verbal autopsy to verify cause of death [21], and sample collections for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics analyses [11]. By virtue of their participation in the Global Network, principal investigators, senior foreign investigators and team members alike have received numerous academic awards and recognition from their home institutions and the health systems of their countries.…”

Section: Capacity Buildingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research: A model of capacity-building research

Koso‐Thomas

McClure

2015

Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine

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SUMMARY In response to the global effort to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, a partnership was created between the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to establish the Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research (Global Network) in 2000. The Global Network was developed with a goal of building local maternal and child health research capacity in resource-poor settings. The objective of the network was to conduct research focused on several high-need areas, such as preventing life-threatening obstetric complications, improving birth weight and infant growth, and improving childbirth practices in order to reduce mortality. Scientists from developing countries, together with peers in the USA, lead research teams that identify and address population needs through randomized clinical trials and other research studies. Global Network projects develop and test cost-effective, sustainable interventions for pregnant women and newborns and provide guidance for national policy and for the practice of evidence-based medicine. This article reviews the results of the Global Network's research, the impact on policy and practice, and highlights the capacity-building efforts and collaborations developed since its inception.

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Birth attendants as perinatal verbal autopsy respondents in low- and middle-income countries: a viable alternative?

Cited by 14 publications

References 26 publications

New challenges for verbal autopsy: Considering the ethical and social implications of verbal autopsy methods in routine health information systems

New challenges for verbal autopsy: Considering the ethical and social implications of verbal autopsy methods in routine health information systems

A systematic review of vital events tracking by community health agents

The Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research: A model of capacity-building research

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