Using verbal autopsy to measure causes of death: the comparative performance of existing methods.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Monitoring progress with disease and injury reduction in many populations will require widespread use of verbal autopsy (VA). Multiple methods have been developed for assigning cause of death from a VA but their application is restricted by uncertainty about their reliability.

Methods

We investigated the validity of five automated VA methods for assigning cause of death: InterVA-4, Random Forest (RF), Simplified Symptom Pattern (SSP), Tariff method (Tariff), and King-Lu (KL), in addition to physician review of VA forms (PCVA), based on 12,535 cases from diverse populations for which the true cause of death had been reliably established. For adults, children, neonates and stillbirths, performance was assessed separately for individuals using sensitivity, specificit

SUBMITTER: Murray CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3891983 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature