Background: Accurate and timely cause of death (COD) data are essential for informed public health policymaking. Medical certification of COD generally provides the majority of COD data in a population and is an essential component of civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems. Accurate completion of the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCOD) should be a relatively straightforward procedure for physicians, but mistakes are common. Here, we present three training strategies implemented in five countries supported by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health (D4H) Initiative at the University of Melbourne (UoM) and evaluate the impact on the quality of certification. Methods: The three training strategies evaluated were (1) training of trainers (TOT) in the Philippines, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka; (2) direct training of physicians by the UoM D4H in Papua New Guinea (PNG); and (3) the implementation of an online and basic training strategy in Peru. The evaluation involved an assessment of MCCODs before and after training using an assessment tool developed by the University of Melbourne. Results: The TOT strategy led to reductions in incorrectly completed certificates of between 28% in Sri Lanka and 40% in the Philippines. Following direct training of physicians in PNG, the reduction in incorrectly completed certificates was 30%. In Peru, the reduction in incorrect certificates was 30% after implementation and training on an online system only and 43% after training on both the online system and basic medical certification principles. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that a variety of training strategies can produce benefits in the quality of certification, but further improvements are possible. The experiences of D4H suggest several aspects of the strategies that should be further developed to improve outcomes, particularly key stakeholder engagement from early in the intervention and local committees to oversee activities and support an improved culture in hospitals to support better diagnostic skills and practices.

BackgroundMortality statistics derived from cause of death data are an important source of information for population health monitoring, priority setting and planning. In Perú, almost all death certificates are issued by doctors because it is a legal requirement. However, the quality of cause of death data is poor. In August 2016, the Ministry of Health of Perú decided to make two specific interventions to improve cause of death data: to introduce an online death certification system and to train doctors in standard death certification practices.MethodsThe study comprised a random sample of 300 pre-intervention death certificates, 900 death certificates that were part of the online intervention, and 900 death certificates that were part of both the online and training interventions. All the deaths had occurred between January and September 2017. We used the Assessing the quality of death certification tool from the University of Melbourne for the assessment. We examined the frequency of common errors in death certificates, the frequency of any error and the average error score for each category of: age group, sex, doctor’s seniority, doctor’s speciality, level of health facility and broad cause of death.ResultsThe average error score declined by 38% due to the online intervention and by a further 26% due to the training intervention. Improved certification practices remained after controlling for potentially confounding factors. Main improvements were reductions in the absence of a time interval (66% of certificates), incorrect sequence of causes (22%), and ill-defined conditions (13%).ConclusionsThis study demonstrates how the two interventions introduced by the Ministry of Health in Perú improved the correctness of death certificates. The study also provides evidence on necessary changes to the training program to address the poor certification practices that have remained after implementation of the online system.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-6264-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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BackgroundNon-communicable diseases (NCD) are the leading cause of premature death and disability in the Pacific. In 2011, Pacific Forum Leaders declared “a human, social and economic crisis” due to the significant and growing burden of NCDs in the region. In 2013, Pacific Health Ministers’ commitment to ‘whole of government’ strategy prompted calls for the development of a robust, sustainable, collaborative NCD monitoring and accountability system to track, review and propose remedial action to ensure progress towards the NCD goals and targets. The purpose of this paper is to describe a regional, collaborative framework for coordination, innovation and application of NCD monitoring activities at scale, and to show how they can strengthen accountability for action on NCDs in the Pacific. A key component is the Dashboard for NCD Action which aims to strengthen mutual accountability by demonstrating national and regional progress towards agreed NCD policies and actions.DiscussionThe framework for the Pacific Monitoring Alliance for NCD Action (MANA) draws together core country-level components of NCD monitoring data (mortality, morbidity, risk factors, health system responses, environments, and policies) and identifies key cross-cutting issues for strengthening national and regional monitoring systems. These include: capacity building; a regional knowledge exchange hub; innovations (monitoring childhood obesity and food environments); and a robust regional accountability system.The MANA framework is governed by the Heads of Health and operationalised by a multi-agency technical Coordination Team. Alliance membership is voluntary and non-conditional, and aims to support the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories to improve the quality of NCD monitoring data across the region. In establishing a common vision for NCD monitoring, the framework combines data collected under the WHO Global Framework for NCDs with a set of action-orientated indicators captured in a NCD Dashboard for Action.SummaryViewing NCD monitoring as a multi-component system and providing a robust, transparent mutual accountability mechanism helps align agendas, roles and responsibilities of countries and support organisations. The dashboard provides a succinct communication tool for reporting progress on implementation of agreed policies and actions and its flexible methodology can be easily expanded, or adapted for other regions.