Handbook On Civil Registration And Vital Statistics Systems

The publication is an international standard on the design and operation of an efficient and accurate vital statistics system at national level. It provides guidelines on collection, compiling and disseminating vital statistics. More specifically it contains (a) basic principles for a vital statistics system; (b) uses of vital statistics and civil registration records; (c) topics to be covered in a vital statistics system; (d) sources of vital statistics and how they function; (e) quality assurance in the vital statistics system and (f) strategies in improving civil registration and vital statistics systems in countries. It also informs policy makers and the general public on the importance of vital statistics and hence further improving the vital statistics system.

In order to protect the privacy of individuals, while at the same time, maximizing the completeness & accuracy of reported information, this comprehensive Handbook presents a series of policies & protocols that can be adopted by the concerned authorities for civil registration & vital statistics systems for implementation by registrars & other personnel involved.

Acquiring knowledge of the size and characteristics of a country's population on a timely basis is a prerequisite to socioeconomic planning and informed decision making. Vital statistics and their subsequent analysis and interpretation are essential for setting targets and evaluating social and economic plans, including the monitoring of health and population intervention programmes, and the measurement of important demographic indicators of levels of living or quality of life, such as the expectation of life at birth and the infant mortality rate. Vital statistics can be produced solely from a full-functioning civil registration system as the only source able to ensure universal coverage and provide timely and continuous data. This Handbook offers background, specifications and practical examples for the improvement and/or establishment of civil registration, vital statistics and identity management systems. It presents model organizational and legal arrangements, as well as ideal descriptions, processes and protocols that are considered the gold standard.

This handbook is designed for use in developing training courses in civil registration and vital statistics systems. Target groups may include national officials from ongoing civil registration and vital statistics systems or university students in such programmes as statistics, demography and social sciences, medicine and public health. The main part of the handbook consists of 23 training modules that can be presented in approximately one hour each. Within each modules is: a contents summary; source readings; a list of key points; discussion points and suggested exercises; review questions.

This handbook compiles methods for gathering, organizing and disseminating data to inform policy and manage health systems worldwide. Contributing authors describe national and international structures for generating data and explain the relevance of ethics, policy, epidemiology, health economics, demography, statistics, geography and qualitative methods to describing population health. The reader, whether a student of global health, public health practitioner, programme manager, data analyst or policymaker, will appreciate the methods, context and importance of collecting and using global health data.