Verifying causes of death in Thailand: rationale and methods for empirical investigation

Rao, Chalapati; Porapakkham, Yawarat; Pattaraarchachai, Junya; Polprasert, Warangkana; Swampunyalert, Narumol; Lopez, Alan D

doi:10.1186/1478-7954-8-11

Cited by 53 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Underreporting of HIV deaths is common in developing countries, and has been documented in Botswana [1], Brazil [2,3], South Africa [4,5], and Thailand [6][7][8], due to under-registered deaths and misclassification of cause of death. These problems severely limit the value of routine mortality data for public utility and affect resource allocations by policymakers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latest VA study in Thailand was carried out in 2005 in nine provinces by the SPICE (Setting Priorities using Information on Cost-Effectiveness analysis) project. The 2005 VA study [8,[16][17][18] was used to estimate various causes of death including HIV. However, the simple cross-referencing method used in these studies ignored the effect of sex-age groups and locality of the deceased, which could give incorrect estimates due to confounding.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Correcting and estimating HIV mortality in Thailand based on 2005 verbal autopsy data focusing on demographic factors, 1996-2009

Chutinantakul

Tongkumchum

Bundhamcharoen

et al. 2014

Popul Health Metrics

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Background: It is known that death registry (DR) underestimates HIV deaths. The objectives of this study were to examine under-reporting/misclassification and to estimate HIV mortality in Thailand during 1996-2009 from a model based on 2005 verbal autopsy (VA) data. Methods: Logistic regression was used to predict HIV deaths from the VA dataset with and without demographic covariates. This full model was then used to predict individual HIV deaths from the DR dataset of provinces in which VA was conducted. The proportions in the remaining provinces were predicted from spatial interpolation based on coefficients of the VA provinces.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correcting and estimating HIV mortality in Thailand based on 2005 verbal autopsy data focusing on demographic factors, 1996-2009

Chutinantakul

Tongkumchum

Bundhamcharoen

et al. 2014

Popul Health Metrics

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“…Interviews and document review remain at the heart of all future approaches to record how data moves through the system (179,186,201). While further tools were developed to "quantify" some of the aspects of the system operation, the qualitative information obtained through this approach is critical to developing a rich understanding of how and why the processes work the way they do.…”

Section: Evaluating Routine Data Collection and Reporting Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The methodology for medical record reviews has been developed over a number of investigations and case studies in the Philippines, Thailand and Australia (269, [341][342][343][344]. Reported methods had to be substantially modified for application in the Pacific Islands (for both the Tonga and Nauru case studies) for several reasons.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The form was then Previous studies have also started from the assumption that the medical records are substantially correct and well kept; they are in fact the "standard" against which the diagnosis on the medical certificate should be judged (269, [341][342][343][344]. However, it is widely known that many of the health systems in the PICTs have poorly kept medical records, with notes and results frequently missing or poorly recorded in the patients chart, or charts missing altogether.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Mortality and cause of death in the Pacific

Carter¹

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Accurate data on mortality levels and causes of death is critical to assist governments to improve the health of their populations; by identifying priority areas for intervention, leveraging resources for such interventions, and to monitor the impact and effectiveness of health programs. To date, there has been little data available to agencies on mortality and causes of death in the Pacific Islands, and there is significant disparity in published estimates, with many considered implausible. Further, there are indications that improvements in life expectancy (LE) across the region have stagnated in contrast to previously published estimates, most likely as a consequence of premature adult mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs).In this research, routine vital registration collections from Pacific Island countries are examined to determine whether these data can improve our understanding of mortality and causes of death in the region. The work presents a review of available data, examines the potential flaws and biases in the data collections, and examines the methods best suited to working with the identified collections to generate valid, reliable estimates of mortality level and cause of death, disaggregated by age group and sex. Due to the scale and diversity of the Pacific Islands, six countries representing a broad range of population size, level of development, and all three sub-regions were selected for review. These were: Nauru, Fiji, Kiribati, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu.Reporting systems were evaluated to identify potential impacts on the quality and completeness of available data using an assessment framework that considers the ii societal, administrative and system (administrative, technical and ownership) influences on the reporting system. Substantially more data was found to be available than has been previously analysed or published. Medical certificates of death are completed for some deaths in all of the study countries, and are required for all deaths in Nauru, Fiji, Tonga and Palau.Analytical strategies for deriving estimates of mortality level by age and sex were selected from available approaches based on the system assessments, data available and level of migration. Methods employed included direct calculation of mortality level and evaluation of trends over time (Nauru and Palau), evaluation of published data to establish plausible trends (Fiji and Tonga), direct demographic methods to assess completeness -the Brass Growth Balance analysis (Fiji), and capture-recapture analyses (Tonga and Kiribati). Only Vanuatu had insufficient data from routine collection systems to reliably generate mortality estimates. Findings from the use of model life tables in comparison to mortality estimates from empirical data in the other study countries were therefore reviewed to evaluate the plausibility of published estimates of mortality level from Vanuatu.Estimates of cause-specific mortality were calculated directly from the medical certificate data for Palau where the system review in...

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Epidemiological Statistics – Further Issues

McNeil

2015

Wiley StatsRef: Statistics Reference Online

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Epidemiological studies use statistical methods to understand the factors that cause, reduce, and prevent diseases in human populations. These studies estimate the parameters in a target population based on representative samples, and can be qualitative or quantitative, descriptive or comparative, and observational or experimental. Parameters of interest include levels of disease and associations between risk factors and disease outcomes. Concept maps are useful for showing causal paths between risk factors, disease outcomes, and intervening variables (confounders) that could distort the association. The statistical methods can be classified by the type and role of the data, and are subject to both inaccuracy or lack of statistical power (due to sampling variability) and bias (due to faulty measurement, differential selection of subjects, or confounding). Matching of subjects can improve accuracy. Mantel–Haenszel methods can reduce confounding bias. Meta‐analysis is used to combine results from different studies. Statistical models include linear, logistic, and Poisson regression and the proportional hazards model for handling censored data.

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Verifying causes of death in Thailand: rationale and methods for empirical investigation

Cited by 53 publications

References 14 publications

Correcting and estimating HIV mortality in Thailand based on 2005 verbal autopsy data focusing on demographic factors, 1996-2009

Correcting and estimating HIV mortality in Thailand based on 2005 verbal autopsy data focusing on demographic factors, 1996-2009

Mortality and cause of death in the Pacific

Epidemiological Statistics – Further Issues

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