Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Actuarial Approach01:20

Actuarial Approach

345
The actuarial approach, a statistical method originally developed for life insurance risk assessment, is widely used to calculate survival rates in clinical and population studies. This method accounts for participants lost to follow-up or those who die from causes unrelated to the study, ensuring a more accurate representation of survival probabilities.
Consider the example of a high-risk surgical procedure with significant early-stage mortality. A two-year clinical study is conducted,...
345
Assumptions of Survival Analysis01:15

Assumptions of Survival Analysis

472
Survival models analyze the time until one or more events occur, such as death in biological organisms or failure in mechanical systems. These models are widely used across fields like medicine, biology, engineering, and public health to study time-to-event phenomena. To ensure accurate results, survival analysis relies on key assumptions and careful study design.
472
Comparing the Survival Analysis of Two or More Groups01:20

Comparing the Survival Analysis of Two or More Groups

679
Survival analysis is a cornerstone of medical research, used to evaluate the time until an event of interest occurs, such as death, disease recurrence, or recovery. Unlike standard statistical methods, survival analysis is particularly adept at handling censored data—instances where the event has not occurred for some participants by the end of the study or remains unobserved. To address these unique challenges, specialized techniques like the Kaplan-Meier estimator, log-rank test, and...
679
Kaplan-Meier Approach01:24

Kaplan-Meier Approach

678
The Kaplan-Meier estimator is a non-parametric method used to estimate the survival function from time-to-event data. In medical research, it is frequently employed to measure the proportion of patients surviving for a certain period after treatment. This estimator is fundamental in analyzing time-to-event data, making it indispensable in clinical trials, epidemiological studies, and reliability engineering. By estimating survival probabilities, researchers can evaluate treatment effectiveness,...
678
The Availability Heuristic01:08

The Availability Heuristic

7.2K
A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):
7.2K
Introduction to Test of Independence01:21

Introduction to Test of Independence

3.0K
In statistics, the term independence means that one can directly obtain the probability of any event involving both variables by multiplying their individual probabilities. Tests of independence are chi-square tests involving the use of a contingency table of observed (data) values.
The test statistic for a test of independence is similar to that of a goodness-of-fit test:
3.0K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

The Road to Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of Syphilis in Malawi: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Health System Readiness.

Sexually transmitted diseases·2026
Same author

A comparison of verbal autopsy assignment methods to obtain adult cause-specific mortality in two longitudinal studies in Rakai and Kalungu districts of South Central, Uganda.

PLOS global public health·2026
Same author

Psychiatric genetics research in Africa: challenges, opportunities and strategic insights from the Depression Genetics in Africa (DepGenAfrica) study.

The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science·2026
Same author

Total and live birth prevalence of singleton pregnancies with Down's syndrome in Scotland between 2000 and 2021: a population-based study.

The Lancet regional health. Europe·2026
Same author

KidneyGenAfrica multi-cohort Genome-wide association study and polygenic prediction of kidney function in 110,000 Africans.

Nature communications·2026
Same author

Individual and population-level risk factors for new HIV infections among adults in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Nature communications·2026

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 10, 2026

Comprehensive Autopsy Program for Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis
09:41

Comprehensive Autopsy Program for Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis

Published on: July 19, 2019

12.1K

Probabilistic Cause-of-death Assignment using Verbal Autopsies.

Tyler H McCormick1, Zehang Richard Li2, Clara Calvert3

  • 1Department of Statistics, University of Washington; Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (CSSS), University of Washington; Department of Sociology, University of Washington.

Journal of the American Statistical Association
|December 20, 2016
PubMed
Summary

In regions with poor vital statistics, verbal autopsy (VA) helps determine causes of death. A new tool, InSilicoVA, improves cause-of-death assignment accuracy using VA data.

More Related Videos

Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Propensity Score using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index
06:55

Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Propensity Score using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index

Published on: January 8, 2020

15.4K
Symmetric Bihemispheric Postmortem Brain Cutting to Study Healthy and Pathological Brain Conditions in Humans
08:29

Symmetric Bihemispheric Postmortem Brain Cutting to Study Healthy and Pathological Brain Conditions in Humans

Published on: December 18, 2016

14.7K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Mar 10, 2026

Comprehensive Autopsy Program for Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis
09:41

Comprehensive Autopsy Program for Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis

Published on: July 19, 2019

12.1K
Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Propensity Score using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index
06:55

Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Propensity Score using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index

Published on: January 8, 2020

15.4K
Symmetric Bihemispheric Postmortem Brain Cutting to Study Healthy and Pathological Brain Conditions in Humans
08:29

Symmetric Bihemispheric Postmortem Brain Cutting to Study Healthy and Pathological Brain Conditions in Humans

Published on: December 18, 2016

14.7K

Area of Science:

  • Demography
  • Public Health
  • Biostatistics

Background:

  • Complete civil registration and vital statistics systems are lacking in many regions, leading to uncertainty in demographic indicators.
  • Most deaths occur outside hospitals and are unrecorded, with less than one-third of global deaths assigned a cause, particularly in impoverished nations.
  • Verbal autopsy (VA) is a key tool for assessing causes of death in these populations, relying on caregiver interviews about symptoms preceding death.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To introduce InSilicoVA, a novel statistical tool for classifying causes of death using verbal autopsy data.
  • To address the uncertainty in individual cause-of-death assignments and population-level cause distributions.

Main Methods:

  • Development of the InSilicoVA statistical tool.
  • Classification of cause of death based on verbal autopsy interview data.
  • Comparison of InSilicoVA performance against existing methods using both observed and simulated data.

Main Results:

  • InSilicoVA effectively classifies causes of death from verbal autopsy information.
  • The tool appropriately shares uncertainty between individual diagnoses and population-level cause distributions.
  • Demonstrated distinct advantages of InSilicoVA over current methods in comparative analyses.

Conclusions:

  • InSilicoVA offers a significant advancement in determining causes of death in settings with limited vital statistics.
  • The tool enhances the accuracy and reliability of mortality data derived from verbal autopsies.
  • InSilicoVA provides a valuable method for improving public health surveillance and understanding of disease burden in data-poor environments.