Less than 50% of deaths worldwide had a recorded cause, how this is changing

What has killed the most people in the world? Well, technically, no one really knew for sure for a long time.

That’s because in 2005, only about a third of all deaths worldwide had an officially recorded cause. according to the World Health Organization. This number had almost halved by 2015, with 27 million of the 56 million deaths that year having a recorded cause of death. But that share was still well below where it should be. After all, you need to know what is killing the majority of people in order to come up with the right policies and interventions to prevent such deaths in the future.

That was the reason for the start of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for health initiativewhich has helped collect 12.2 million birth certificates and 16.2 million new or improved death certificates in 31 different countries since 2015. And at the end of July, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a $150 million refinancing in this initiative and an additional $40 million investment from the Gates Foundation. This brings the total money invested in the Data for Health Initiative since its inception to $436 million.

“Countries have been eager to better understand their birth and death situations,” explains Kelly Henning, MD the public health program leader for Bloomberg Philanthropies and highlighted how enthusiastic the governments of various countries have been about this initiative. “We didn’t find any political problems [hampering countries’ interest in the initiative].” In addition to working with governments of low- and middle-income countries to collect birth and mortality data, the initiative has helped establish cancer registries, collect data on risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and train people to collect , analyzing and using data in healthcare. general.

An example of progress fueled and supported by Data for Health was helping the country of Colombia make this progress first ever interactive report on vital statistics. Such a report helps people get more data about their health. Policymakers and others can now use the report to search births and deaths in different ways and separate them by geography, year, gender and age. And that, in turn, can help determine whether death rates are higher for people in certain groups and from certain backgrounds.

Another example is the Data to Policy (D2P) training programwhich was developed in collaboration with Vital Strategies, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several national governments and has now been delivered to 20 different countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. According to the description, the training program is intended to help participants better use data and evidence to evaluate health problems, develop and choose policies that address the root causes of such problems, use methods such as stakeholder analysis, health impact assessment and economic evaluation, and communicate policy recommendations to others. It also seeks to help organizations develop sets of ‘data-driven policy recommendations in priority areas’, staff with the skills and toolkits for policy analysis, systems to use data and evidence, and training programs and capacity for all of the above.

A third example is what happened in Rwanda, where the number of death registrations has more than quadrupled. The initiative has achieved this in part by better connecting the healthcare sector and the country’s civil registration authorities. It is also helped by further formalizing the way mortality is reported in communities and health facilities.

One approach is to increase the use of verbal autopsies and standardize them. A verbal autopsy (VA), as described by WHOis when you interview the relatives and caregivers of someone who has died to gather information about the deceased’s symptoms, medical history, and surrounding circumstances. This information can then be used by healthcare professionals or by algorithms to determine the likely cause of death, especially when formal medical certification of deaths is not routinely implemented. WHO has posted a Verbal Autopsy Tool in 2022 – an update of the tool established in 2016 – to guide and facilitate VAs.

Yes, data is quite important when making decisions. Otherwise it’s more like guesswork, or let’s try this and hope it’s the right thing, or let’s even do nothing. Even though you can guess the causes of death of many people in one area based on what happens in other locations, it’s still a guess. You can’t always assume that what happens in one community also happens in other communities. Different people may face very different circumstances and challenges due to issues such as discrimination against women and racial/ethnic minorities and inequality in general.

Another major benefit of the initiative so far is simply that people who should be working together are working together, like different parts of the same government. “Before the initiative, ministries within a country’s government often did not meet or speak to each other. These are blocks that had to be overcome.” Not exactly shocking to anyone who has ever worked in a large organization and seen the classic right-hand-don’t-know-what-the-left-hand situation. Sometimes the right hand doesn’t even know it’s a hand, a problem that can get out of hand.

In a statement announcing the reinvestment in Data for Health, Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies and the WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries, said: “When we launched the Data for Health Initiative nearly a decade ago we set out to provide countries with the tools they need to measure and manage major public health challenges – and the results have been encouraging.”

Bill Gates, co-chairman of the Gates Foundation, added the following to the statement: “Children today are twice as likely as children in the year 2000 to survive their fifth birthday – thanks in large part to data that helps us understand who dies where, and why.” He continued: “This is a simple idea, but it is difficult to implement, especially in remote communities. These investments will help improve data collection and in turn give us a fuller picture of where and how diseases affect people, so more children and families can live better, healthier lives.”

There is a saying that death can teach you about life. And many deaths in the world still occur far too soon. Many people continue to face life-threatening inequalities and conditions that could have been prevented. And collecting and using the right data can ensure that those who have died as a result did not do so in vain.