Improvement of the reliability of the cause of death diagnoses by co-operation of public health authorities and the Central Statistical Office in Hungary

Abstract

The diagnosis of cause of death is based on the sequence of diagnoses declared by the physician who completes the death certificate that is processed by Central Statistical Office in Hungary. The validity control of the data requires the active involvement of the public health authority. The authors analyzed the death certificates from Tolna county in order to elaborate and evaluate methods for cause of death data validity control. Diagnoses of cause of death declared by the physician, corrected by the social statistical review in the Central Statistical Office, and revised by public health authority were compared to evaluate the quality of cause of death data. It was found that 5-10% of the cause of death diagnoses declared by physicians required some modification, resulting more than 1% change in county specific mortality statistics of the main International Classification of Diseases groups. Physicians who reported inaccurate cause of death data were identified. 10 indicators were defined to monitor the process elaborated in the project. Co-operation between the Central Statistical Office and public health authorities to improve the quality of cause of death data should be continued because evaluation of public health interventions needs more and more reliable and detailed cause of death statistics.