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Evaluating the Quality of National Mortality Statistics from Civil Registration in South Africa, 1997–2007

Overview of attention for article published in PLOS ONE, May 2013
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  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (69th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (63rd percentile)

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1 policy source
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2 X users

Citations

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46 Dimensions

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103 Mendeley
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1 CiteULike
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Title
Evaluating the Quality of National Mortality Statistics from Civil Registration in South Africa, 1997–2007
Published in
PLOS ONE, May 2013
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0064592
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jané Joubert, Chalapati Rao, Debbie Bradshaw, Theo Vos, Alan D. Lopez

Abstract

Two World Health Organization comparative assessments rated the quality of South Africa's 1996 mortality data as low. Since then, focussed initiatives were introduced to improve civil registration and vital statistics. Furthermore, South African cause-of-death data are widely used by research and international development agencies as the basis for making estimates of cause-specific mortality in many African countries. It is hence important to assess the quality of more recent South African data. We employed nine criteria to evaluate the quality of civil registration mortality data. Four criteria were assessed by analysing 5.38 million deaths that occurred nationally from 1997-2007. For the remaining five criteria, we reviewed relevant legislation, data repositories, and reports to highlight developments which shaped the current status of these criteria. National mortality statistics from civil registration were rated satisfactory for coverage and completeness of death registration, temporal consistency, age/sex classification, timeliness, and sub-national availability. Epidemiological consistency could not be assessed conclusively as the model lacks the discriminatory power to enable an assessment for South Africa. Selected studies and the extent of ill-defined/non-specific codes suggest substantial shortcomings with single-cause data. The latter criterion and content validity were rated unsatisfactory. In a region marred by mortality data absences and deficiencies, this analysis signifies optimism by revealing considerable progress from a dysfunctional mortality data system to one that offers all-cause mortality data that can be adjusted for demographic and health analysis. Additionally, timely and disaggregated single-cause data are available, certified and coded according to international standards. However, without skillfully estimating adjustments for biases, a considerable confidence gap remains for single-cause data to inform local health planning, or to fill gaps in sparse-data countries on the continent. Improving the accuracy of single-cause data will be a critical contribution to the epidemiologic and population health evidence base in Africa.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 2 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 103 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 2 2%
Brazil 1 <1%
Unknown 100 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 18 17%
Student > Master 17 17%
Student > Ph. D. Student 15 15%
Student > Postgraduate 9 9%
Student > Bachelor 6 6%
Other 20 19%
Unknown 18 17%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 30 29%
Social Sciences 10 10%
Nursing and Health Professions 9 9%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 6 6%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 4 4%
Other 22 21%
Unknown 22 21%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 February 2022.
All research outputs
#6,742,265
of 22,647,730 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#79,238
of 193,359 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#57,561
of 194,978 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#1,706
of 4,819 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,647,730 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 69th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 193,359 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 194,978 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4,819 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 63% of its contemporaries.