African vital statistics--a black hole?

Abstract

An attempt was made to describe the disease patterns among blacks on the basis of registered deaths, which have been collected for the whole of the RSA since 1978. The pattern of cause-specific proportional mortality resembled that of an underdeveloped population. It was noticed that the data were not suitable for detailed descriptions because there was evidence of under-registration and misclassification, in particular in the national states. A large proportion (20% on average) of the deaths are classified as caused by symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions. It is recommended that the process of registration be reviewed in order to improve the quality of the data so necessary for epidemiological and health care research.