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An Evaluation of a Special-type Vital Statistics Registration System in a Rural Area of Nigeria

1979; Oxford University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ije/8.1.61

1464-3685

Olusola Ayeni, Ademola A Olayinka,

Autopsy Techniques and Outcomes

An alternative system for registering birth and deaths, instituted in 1964 in Igbo-Ora, a rural Nigerian town of than conventional registration procedures. In the alternative system, 6 individuals were hired and expected to visit all the households in the town every 2 weeks and to record any deaths or births which had occurred during the previous 2 weeks. The system has been in operation for 10 years. The completeness of the birth and death registration by the home visitors was assessed for 1974. Birth registrations were at least 95% complete and death registrations were approximately 87% complete; however, for children under 1 year of age death registrations were only 49% complete. It was suggested that death registrations for those under 1 year of age could be improved if the health visitors would specifically inquire 1) about the health status of each newborn at every visit during the 1st year and 2) about the outcome of each pregnancy observed by the visitors. The use of home visitors, although more costly, was considerably more accurate than the conventional system in which individuals were expected to register births and deaths themselves. The evaluation procedures included a complete household survey of the town and the use of techniques developed by Brass and by Fargues and Courbage for correcting death registrations. Tables show 1) estimated population figures and crude birth and death rates for the town for 1964-1974; 2) estimated gross reproduction rate for 1974; and 3) crude birth and death rates for 1974 estimated by using various analytical techniques.