Meetings on Civil Registration and Vital Statistical (CRVS) assessment

Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, 18 and 20 October 2016 

The IUSSP Scientific Panel on Innovations for Strengthening Civil Registration and Vital Statistical Systems organised a side meeting and a round table with the aim of showcasing recent methodological developments, and of fostering an exchange of regional experiences on how to best assess the completeness and accuracy of birth and death statistics, which are key indicators of CRVS system performance.

These meetings brought together regional specialists and experts involved with the development and/or the application of direct methods, especially through the use of record linkage validation for assessing the completeness and accuracy of births and deaths records based on data from civil registration and other administrative and health sources, at national or local levels.

The Side Meeting on the "Assessment of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Using Direct Methods" on 18 October, organized by Maria Isabel Cobos (UN Statistics Division), elicited a lively discussion with participants on the importance and challenges of improving vital statistics and civil registration systems using direct methods as well as indirect methods. The second half of the workshop focused on applications using record linkage. On Thursday 20 October, discussion continued with a Roundtable on "Academic Perspectives on the Evaluation of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics". 

The papers presented at the sessions included:  an analysis of deaths due to accidents in La Rioja, Argentina; challenges in the use of administrative registers for population estimates at the municipal level; the improvement of birth registration in Argentina; completeness estimates of vital statistics at the subnational level; synthetic indicators of birth registration quality and living conditions; the role of quality evaluation in the UN Principles and Recommendations for vital statistics and the reported level of completeness; evaluation of data quality and completeness of CRVS using record linkage; active search of deaths and completeness improvement in Brazil; integration of births, deaths and maternity statistics in Uruguay; and the development of a model that combines probabilistic, geographic and demographic methods to estimate and correct death under-registration in Mexico.

PROGRAMME: 

Side Meeting on the “Assessment of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Using Direct Methods” on 18 October.

The first session was chaired by Marcela Cerrutti (CONICET) included the following papers and presenters: 

• El papel de la evaluación de la calidad en los Principios y Recomendaciones de la ONU sobre Estadísticas Vitales  & Panorama regional de los niveles reportados de cobertura. Presenter: Maria Isabel Cobos (UN Statistics Division)
• El Grupo de trabajo sobre Cobertura y Calidad de la Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe para el Fortalecimiento de los Sistemas de Información de Salud . Presenter: Bruno Ribotta (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba –Argentina) 
• Completud del registro civil y evaluación de la calidad en el contexto de la iniciativa Data for Health en países de la región.  Presenter: Juan Cortez - Data4Health (who replaced Fatima Marinho, who was unable to attend). 

The second session, moderated by Maria Isabel Cobos (UN Statistics Division),  focused on applications of direct methods including record linkage and included the following papers and speakers: 

• Evaluating data quality and completeness of CRVS using Record Linkage. Presenter: Helge Brunborg (Statistics Norway) 
• Búsqueda activa de defunciones y mejoramiento de la cobertura. Integración de los datos de salud para generar estadísticas vitales. Presenter: Célia Landmann Szwarcwald (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz – Brazil)
• Integración de estadísticas sobre nacimientos, infancia y maternidad. Presenter: Cristina Tello, Area de Gestión y Evaluación del Estado (Presidencia de la República – Uruguay)
• Desarrollo de un modelo que combina métodos probabilísticos, geográficos y demográficos para estimar y corregir el subregistro de las defunciones en México. Presenter: Lina Sofia Palacio Mejía (Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública – Mexico)

The round table on “Evaluation of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics from an academic perspective” on 20 October, chaired by Maria Isabel Cobos (UN Statistics Division) with Magda Ruiz (Celade/CEPAL) as discussant included the following speakers and presentations (in Spanish or Portuguese): 

• Análisis de las defunciones por accidentes de tránsito en los registros oficiales de La Rioja - Argentina 2011 – 2014. Presenter: Marcos Javier Andrada (CONICET-UNLaR-CENIIT – Argentina) 
• Potencialidades e desafios no uso de registros administrativos nas estimativas populacionais municipais: uma análise exploratória para o Brasil no período 1990-2010. Presenter: Luiz Felipe Walter Barros (IBGE –Brazil).
• El mejoramiento del registro de nacimientos en Argentina. Presenter: Laura Calvelo (UBA – Argentina)        
• Estimaciones sub-nacionales de la cobertura de las estadísticas vitales. Experiencias recientes en América Latina. Presenter: Bruno Ribotta (CONICET – Argentina)
• A qualidade dos registros de nascimentos e as condições de vida do Semiárido brasileiro: construção de indicadores sintéticos. Presenter: Neir Antunes Paes (UFPB – Brazil)