Verbal Autopsy - Concept and Role in Indian Scenario

Abstract

Mortality statistics plays a very important role in creating an information pool about the prevalent diseases in the community.^1,2 Life and Death - are two universal events of life with a defined and clear outcome which is easy to understand2 even for people with no medical background. Enumeration of births and deaths in the community within a defined time period helps us to have an idea about the crude birth rate and crude death rate, respectively. In absence of a well developed, reliable health information system, often, these are the only reliable health information available to us.^3,4

Enumerating the births and deaths in the community has a very long history - both nationally and globally. There is a tradition among Hindus - to record the death of near and dear ones while completing the religious ceremony in memory of the passed ones in Haridwar.⁵ This provides a geneaology tree of family members died. In Europe, church members used to enumerate the births and deaths in the community and usually considered as a reliable source of information.^6,7