Institute of Health Systems, Hyderabad, India.
Lancet. 2007 Nov 10;370(9599):1653-63. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61308-7.
Vital statistics generated through civil registration systems are the major source of continuous monitoring of births and deaths over time. The usefulness of vital statistics depends on their quality. In the second paper in this Series we propose a comprehensive and practical framework for assessment of the quality of vital statistics. With use of routine reports to the UN and cause-of-death data reported to WHO, we review the present situation and past trends of vital statistics in the world and note little improvement in worldwide availability of general vital statistics or cause-of-death statistics. Only a few developing countries have been able to improve their civil registration and vital statistics systems in the past 50 years. International efforts to improve comparability of vital statistics seem to be effective, and there is reasonable progress in collection and publication of data. However, worldwide efforts to improve data have been limited to sporadic and short-term measures. We conclude that countries and developmental partners have not recognised that civil registration systems are a priority.
通过民事登记系统生成的生命统计数据是随着时间的推移持续监测出生和死亡情况的主要来源。生命统计数据的有用性取决于其质量。在本系列的第二篇论文中，我们提出了一个全面实用的生命统计数据质量评估框架。我们利用向联合国提交的定期报告和向世界卫生组织报告的死因数据，审查了世界生命统计数据和死因统计数据的现状和过去趋势，并注意到一般生命统计数据或死因统计数据在全球的可用性几乎没有改善。在过去 50 年中，只有少数发展中国家能够改进其民事登记和生命统计系统。国际上为提高生命统计数据的可比性所做的努力似乎是有效的，并且在数据的收集和公布方面也取得了合理的进展。然而，全世界提高数据质量的努力仅限于零星的短期措施。我们的结论是，各国和发展伙伴尚未认识到民事登记系统是一个优先事项。
