Related Experiment Videos
[Present situation of official statistics related to mortality from external causes]
1Departamento de Epidemiologia, Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil.
Insights
Official statistics on child mortality in São Paulo are unreliable due to data transcription errors from the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) to the SEADE Foundation. Improving data transfer is crucial for accurate cause-of-death analysis.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Epidemiology
- Medical Statistics
Context:
- Child mortality data in São Paulo, Brazil, from 1985.
- Analysis of deaths due to accidents and violence in children under 15.
- Utilized data from the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) and SEADE Foundation.
Purpose:
- To assess the reliability of official child mortality statistics.
- To identify deficiencies in data transcription between IML and SEADE.
- To compare IML and SEADE data with investigator opinions.
Summary:
- IML data closely aligns with investigator opinions at ICD-9 grouping levels (84.77%).
- Official SEADE statistics show higher reliability at grouping levels (67.13%) compared to ICD-9 3rd digit (24.05%) against investigator opinion.
- Agreement between IML and SEADE data is low (40% at ICD-9 category level, 75% at grouping level).
Impact:
- Highlights significant data loss and transcription issues in official mortality records.
- Suggests improvements needed in data management between medical examiners and statistical agencies.
- Underscores the impact of data quality on the accuracy of public health surveillance and policy.
Abstract:
A study was carried out on the basis of research data of the deaths due to all kinds of accidents and violence of 550 children of less than 15 years of age, resident in the municipality of S. Paulo, State of S. Paulo, Brazil, which occurred during 1985. The project sought to correlate the existing data of the files of the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) with those of SEADE Foundation (official statistics) and then compare them with the investigator opinion (this latter based on all the additional information available) with a view to: analysing the reliability of the official statistics concerning the main cause of death; and discovering the possible deficiency in the transcription of the IML information to the SEADE Foundation in relation to the same cause. The results are as follows: existing IML information stands quite close to the interviewer's opinion (71.54%) when working at the level of the categories of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9), reaching 84.77% of agreement when grouping level is considered; in relation to the interviewer's opinion, official statistics proved to be more reliable when analysed at the grouping level than that at the 3rd digit (67.13% and 24.05%, respectively); comparison between IML and SEADE Foundation data shows only 40% of agreement concerning the ICD-9 categories, reaching 75% when grouping data are analysed. These figures corroborate the proposed hypothesis that the IML, though having files with highly-detailed information, does not transfer them to the SEADE Foundation, thus diminishing the reliability of the official statistics when the details of each cause of death are considered.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)