[The verbal autopsy: a tool for the study of mortality in children]

The verbal autopsy (VA) is a technique that has been used since 1931, but it wasn't until the last decade that it has been more widely used by different investigators to study mortality both in infancy/childhood and adulthood. The VA consists of an interview directed to a care-giver (usually the mother) close to the deceased subject, and its objective is to disclose information about the cause of death. The VA has been particularly useful in those places where a reliable record of mortality is unavailable or nonexisting. This paper describes the assumptions on which the VA is based, and highlights its most important methodological aspects. Lastly, we stress the use of the VA as an useful too to assess the process associated with mortality, including the family's decision-making process to look for medical care as well as the response and characteristics of the medical care system. In this respect, we point out to the usefulness of the VA as an interface between epidemiology and ethnography, and stress its potential impact as a tool to learn more about the process of health-seeking behaviors, from the points of view of mothers and physicians.