Emerg Themes Epidemiol. 2007 Jun 1;4:9. doi: 10.1186/1742-7622-4-9.
Measuring rates and circumstances of population mortality (in particular crude and under-5 year mortality rates) is essential to evidence-based humanitarian relief interventions. Because prospective vital event registration is absent or deteriorates in nearly all crisis-affected populations, retrospective household surveys are often used to estimate and describe patterns of mortality. Originally designed for measuring vaccination coverage, the two-stage cluster survey methodology is frequently employed to measure mortality retrospectively due to limited time and resources during humanitarian emergencies. The method tends to be followed without considering alternatives, and there is a need for expert advice to guide health workers measuring mortality in the field. In a workshop in France in June 2006, we deliberated the problems inherent in this method when applied to measure outcomes other than vaccine coverage and acute malnutrition (specifically, mortality), and considered recommendations for improvement. Here we describe these recommendations and outline outstanding issues in three main problem areas in emergency mortality assessment discussed during the workshop: sampling, household data collection issues, and cause of death ascertainment. We urge greater research on these issues. As humanitarian emergencies become ever more complex, all agencies should benefit from the most recently tried and tested survey tools.
衡量人口死亡率（尤其是粗死亡率和五岁以下儿童死亡率）对于基于证据的人道主义救援干预至关重要。由于几乎所有受危机影响的人群都缺乏前瞻性重要事件登记或其登记情况恶化，因此常常使用回顾性家庭调查来估计和描述死亡率模式。两阶段整群抽样调查方法最初是为测量疫苗接种覆盖率而设计的，由于人道主义紧急情况期间时间和资源有限，该方法经常被用于回顾性地测量死亡率。人们往往在不考虑其他方法的情况下采用这种方法，因此需要专家建议来指导实地测量死亡率的卫生工作者。在2006年6月于法国举办的一次研讨会上，我们探讨了该方法在用于测量除疫苗接种覆盖率和急性营养不良（特别是死亡率）以外的结果时所固有的问题，并考虑了改进建议。在此，我们描述这些建议，并概述研讨会上讨论的紧急情况下死亡率评估三个主要问题领域中的未决问题：抽样、家庭数据收集问题以及死因确定。我们敦促对这些问题进行更多研究。随着人道主义紧急情况变得日益复杂，所有机构都应受益于最新经过试验和测试的调查工具。
