Mortality coding involves transforming information on death certificates into alpha-numeric codes. This allows for the tabulation and aggregation of mortality statistics for monitoring population health. As part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health (D4H) Initiative, countries will be provided with guidance and advice on how to implement or improve mortality coding according to ICD-10 coding rules.

Certification is the process doctors use to determine underlying cause of death. Improved certification practices ensure that decision-makers have accurate information on what people are dying from. Activities to improve certification include: establishing national mortality committees; introducing the international form of medical certificate of cause of death; training courses and curriculum.

CRVS systems encompass the registration of births and deaths and the generation of vital statistics from these events. Improving registration practices provides a range of benefits. As part of the D4H initiative, countries will be supported to improve birth and death notification and registration through: use of enterprise architecture; establishing committees; reviewing legislation and regulations; and implementing standard collection forms.

Registration practices refer to all the actions that need to take place from the notification of an event, to its registration with the appropriate civil registry authorities, through to the issue of a certified document. Examples of best practice for birth and death registration include making it a legal requirement to register; no fee for registration; and clearly defining roles and responsibilities of various agents.

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a systems science tool that produces business process maps. It helps describe, understand, analyse, compare and visualise the organisation, processes, workflows and functionality of a CRVS system. As part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health (D4H) Initiative and in close collaboration with the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), training on business process mapping will be offered to all D4H countries as a fundamental intervention.

When people die at home or in areas without doctors, it is difficult to know what they died from. Verbal autopsy provides a systematic way of collecting information from close friends or family on the signs and symptoms of someone before they died to determine a probable cause of death.

This tool is designed to assess the quality of death certification practices through checking for the presence of common errors in death certificates. This can be used to assess the quality of death certification as part of routine assessment, or to assess the training needs of doctors in designing cause of death certification training. This tool can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of death certification training.

This document provides guidance on how to improve the quality of cause of death data in hospitals, and will be useful for Ministry of Health staff, hospital administrators and managers, medical society officers, medical education leaders, and physicians. It will also be of interest to stakeholders involved in planning and strengthening civil registration and vital statistics systems, as it provides overall guidance on the steps required in improving hospital data.

This handbook aims to guide doctors in filling out death certificates. Death certification forms an important part of a doctor’s duties because the information recorded in death certificates helps decision-makers determine health priorities for prevention of deaths due to similar causes in the future.

Improving national capacity, skills and knowledge is a critical component of any strategy to strengthen a CRVS system. As part of the D4H Initiative, six training courses are available, with more under development. These courses are currently only open to those countries enrolled as part of the D4H Initiative.