Volume 50 - Article 38 | Pages 1151–1170  

International completeness of death registration

By Ariel Karlinsky

Abstract

Background: Death registration completeness, the share of deaths captured by countries’ vital registration systems, vary substantially across countries. Estimates of completeness, even recent ones, are outdated or contradictory for many countries.

Objective: We derive the most up-to-date and consistent estimates of death registration completeness in as many countries as possible.

Results: Death registration is complete in Europe, North America, and other developed countries. In developing countries, completeness varies by region. While some have complete death registration, many countries completeness ranges from 40% to 75%. Regionally, Africa has lowest death registration completeness, and in many countries no registration data was located. In Latin America and Asia, several countries have improved their registration compared to previously available estimates.

Contribution: This paper presents the publicly available International Completeness of Death Registration (ICDR) dataset: https://github.com/akarlinsky/death registration. ICDR contains the annual amount of deaths registered and death registration completeness in 193 countries from 2015 to 2019.

Author's Affiliation

• Ariel Karlinsky - Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel EMAIL

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Excess mortality associated with HIV: Survey estimates from the PHIA project
Volume 51 - Article 38    | Keywords: excess mortality, HIV/AIDS, mortality

Sample selection bias in adult mortality estimates from mobile phone surveys: Evidence from 25 low- and middle-income countries
Volume 51 - Article 37    | Keywords: adult mortality, data collection, mobile phones, selection bias, sibling survival histories

A Bayesian model for age at death with cohort effects
Volume 51 - Article 33    | Keywords: age at death, Bayesian approach, cohort effects, Italy, mortality

On the relationship between life expectancy, modal age at death, and the threshold age of the life table entropy
Volume 51 - Article 24    | Keywords: Gompertz law, life expectancy, lifespan variation, longevity, mode, mortality

The role of sex and age in seasonal mortality – the case of Poland
Volume 51 - Article 17    | Keywords: mortality, Poland, seasonality, sex differences