Data on births and deaths in Africa

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Integration and coordination in the civil
registration and vital statistics systems
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Presentation plan

1. Civil registration system and coordination within
   the system

3. Coordination between the two systems
2. Vital statistics system and coordination
within the system
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Why coordinate?

• Improve coverage and accuracy of civil
  registration
• Improve availability and quality of vital
  statistics, generated from the civil registration
  system

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Civil registration system centralized (dual
agencies)
Interior, home affairs, Justice or Health
National Statistics, planning or finance
Coordinating committee
Civil Registration
Vital Statistics
Regional level
Local level
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Civil registration system - decentralized
Professional association/working committee
National office
General legal oversight or cooperative, advisory
State/province level
CR/VS
CR/VS
CR/VS
Local level
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Coordination in the civil registration system

• Uniform legislation and regulation nationwide
  procedure for each registration function is
  clearly stated in a manual and disseminated at
  each level
• Legal requirement for reporting vital events
• Definitions of vital events
• Design and use of collection forms
• Training, education and publicity campaigns
• Copy issuance
• Burial permits, recognitions, legitimations,
  adoptions, amendments and delayed registration
• Coding, data-entry and verification methods
• Classifications and tabulations
• Changes to current year records
• In a decentralised system, one has to enforce
  consistency among states/provinces, use of
  joint-government committees or professional
  association might assist

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Coordination in the civil registration system

• Inter-agency coordinating committee
• with each reporting source evaluating and
  monitoring the completeness and reliability of
  registration procedure
• Hospitals, clinics, courthouses, private
  physicians, midwives, funeral directors, cemetery
  operators
• Inspect records in other sources, site visits,
  communication
• With users and potential users of civil
  registration records and vital statistics
  strengthening the demand and attention to civil
  registration
• Family planning programmes, immunization
  campaigns

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Coordination in the civil registration system

• Other communications
• Communication with next level administration
  (between local registration office, regional
  level and national level) provide motivation,
  establish protocols, and integrate local
  operations within national programme
• Communication in both directions
• Periodic meeting
• Site visits

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Vital statistics system

• It collects information by civil registration or
  enumeration on the frequency of occurrence of
  specified and defined vital events as well as
  relevant characteristics of the events themselves
  and of the persons concerned

• The production of vital statistics covers all the
  steps from the data collection up to their
  dissemination collection, compilation,
  processing, analysis, evaluation, presentation
  and dissemination of data in statistical forms

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Sources of data for the vital statistics system
Civil registration
Population census
Samples surveys
The vital statistics
Sample registration
Health services
Administrative records
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Coordination in the vital statistics system

• Uniform legislation and regulation nationwide,
  across all sources
• Definition of vital events
• Characteristics of persons experiencing these
  events (occupation, education attainment, place
  of usual residence etc)
• Coding scheme, classifications
• Base population for vital rates
  (residents/non-residents/both, defined
  sub-geographic areas)

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Coordination in the vital statistics system

• Good communication among various offices
  uniform processes and practices are followed at
  every level throughout the system
• Both directions
• Periodic workshops and conferences, national
  conventions, newsletters, traveling field
  consultants and communications through electronic
  networks

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Coordination in the vital statistics system

• Inter-agency coordinating committee
• With reporting sources
• With users
• At least once a year

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Civil registration and vital statistics system
Hospital
Centraloffice(national level)
Localregistrationoffice
Midwife, father, mother, other
NationalStatistics office

• Institutional, legal, technical settings to
  conduct civil registration
• in a technical, sound, coordinated and
  standardized manner
• throughout the country

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Vital statistics obtained from civil
registration data
Registration forms
Vital record
Statistical report
- Component of the register - Needs to be
preserved in a formal and permanent way
- Checked and transmitted to the institutions
responsible for vital statistics

• Note In some countries and for certain events,
  the same form is used as Legal document/Medical
  certificate/Statistical report
• Thus, the same document is used as proof of the
  occurrence of the event, as the vital record and
  statistical report

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Coordination betweencivil registration and vital
statistics systems

• Define clear administrative and management roles
• Coordinating committee
• Legal issues, operational perspectives or ad-hoc
• Time table for data reporting from local office
  to central office
• Monitoring data reporting accurate, timely and
  complete
• Standardised coding systems, data editing and
  tabulation
• Consistent definitions and standards made
  widely available
• Definitions of vital events
• Geographic areas, health care facilities and
  demographic variables hospital-based mortality
  and natality data for comparison purposes
• Coding of vital events cause of deaths coding
• Coding of special conditions on birth records
  abnormality?
• Social-economic variables education, occupation
  
• Consistent with international standards

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Coordination and integration points to retain

• No matter what kind of system is adopted,
  coordination is always crucial
• Four basic strategies
• Clear designation of responsibilities
• Uniform regulations and standards
• Inter- or intra-agency committees
• Communications, communications, communications!

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• THANK YOU!