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. 2021 May 4;19(1):25.
doi: 10.1186/s12963-021-00256-1.

Estimating causes of out-of-hospital deaths in China: application of SmartVA methods

Jinlei Qi  1 , Tim Adair  2 , Hafizur R Chowdhury  2 , Hang Li  2 , Deirdre McLaughlin  2 , Yunning Liu  1 , Jiangmei Liu  1 , Xinying Zeng  1 , Jinling You  1 , Sonja Firth  2 , Renee Sorchik  2 , Peng Yin  3 , Lijun Wang  1 , Maigeng Zhou  1 , Alan D Lopez  4
Affiliations

Estimating causes of out-of-hospital deaths in China: application of SmartVA methods

Jinlei Qi et al. Popul Health Metr. .

Abstract

Background: Most deaths in China occur at home, making it difficult to collect reliable cause of death (CoD) information. Verbal autopsy (VA) was applied using the SmartVA tool to a sample of home deaths in China to explore its feasibility as a means of improving the quality of CoD data.

Methods: The study was carried out in 22 districts in 9 provinces, located in north-east, central, and western areas of China during 2017 and 2018. Trained interviewers selected suitable respondents in each household to collect information using the Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) shortened and validated electronic VA questionnaire on tablets. The CoD was diagnosed from the interview data using the SmartVA-Analyze 2.0 software (Tariff 2.0).

Results: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) dominated the leading causes of death in all age groups and for both sexes. After redistribution of undetermined causes, stroke (24%), ischemic heart diseases (IHD) (21%), chronic respiratory diseases (11%), and lung cancer (6%) were the leading causes of death. The cause fractions for level-one cause categories and ranking of specific causes were similar between SmartVA and results from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study.

Conclusion: Evidence from this large pilot study suggests that SmartVA is a feasible and plausible tool and could be a valuable tool to improve the quality and standardization of CoD information across China.

Keywords: Cause of death; China; Surveillance; Verbal autopsy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart for SmartVA study
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Cause-specific mortality fraction (CSMF) scatter plots with both sex (a) and male (b) and (c) in 2017-2018
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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