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New Method to Estimate Mortality in Crisis-Affected Populations:
Validation and Feasibility Study
In emergency settings, data on mortality rates and the causes and
circumstances of death are crucial to guide health interventions
and monitor their effectiveness. Current methods to collect such
data require substantial resources and feature important methodological
limitations. In response, FANTA, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine, evaluated an alternative approach to obtaining
a population-based measure of mortality, the exhaustive measurement
(EM) method. The EM method captures mortality data through an exhaustive
search for all deaths occurring in the community over a defined
and very short recall period. Unlike retrospective surveys, it provides
nearly real-time mortality estimates, which are more useful for
operational purposes in relief settings.
The team evaluated the validity of the EM method against a gold standard measure of mortality based on
capture-recapture analysis in various operational settings (rural, urban, camp). Comparative estimates of the
time and cost required for data collection and analysis using the EM method and retrospective surveys are provided in
two publications that resulted from the work: a 2009 report titled A New Method to Estimate Mortality in
Crisis-Affected Populations: Validation and Feasibility Study and a 2010 article titled “A new method to estimate
mortality in crisis-affected and resource-poor settings: validation study” in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Additionally, there are three calculators for analysis of data
collected using the EM method (see mortality survey calculators
at top right of this webpage).
Support for this study was provided by the United States Agency for International Development Office of Health,
Infectious Diseases, and Nutrition, Bureau for Global Health.
Download the March 2009 report [3 kb]
Download the December 2010 journal article [108 kb]
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