Estimating population cause-specific mortality fractions from in-hospital mortality: validation of a new method.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cause-of-death data for many developing countries are not available. Information on deaths in hospital by cause is available in many low- and middle-income countries but is not a representative sample of deaths in the population. We propose a method to estimate population cause-specific mortality fractions (CSMFs) using data already collected in many middle-income and some low-income developing nations, yet rarely used: in-hospital death records.

Methods and findings

For a given cause of death, a community's hospital deaths are equal to total community deaths multiplied by the proportion of deaths occurring in hospital. If we can estimate the proportion dying in hospital, we can estimate the proportion dying in the population using deaths in hospital. We propose t

SUBMITTER: Murray CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2080647 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature