Counting Deaths to Saving Lives: Harnessing Mortality and Cause of Death Statistics through Effective Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System in Nigeria

Abstract

The availability of timely and reliable mortality and cause of death statistics is critical to understanding the levels and distributions of mortality, morbidity, and their causes, and other emerging health threats for evidence-based policy formulation, implementation, and monitoring. However, available estimates in many low- and middle-income countries suggest most deaths go unrecorded and that there is a low medical certification of cause of death by trained physicians. Death registration in Nigeria, with a death rate of 12.4 deaths per 1000 population, is low, while data on medically certified causes of deaths is unavailable. The non-availability of reliable and disaggregated population data is exacerbated in countries like Nigeria with no well-functioning Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems. Among other population data sources, only a well-functioning CRVS system is essential for quality mortality and cause of death statistics on a continuous and universal basis. The descriptive design was adopted to examine how timely and reliable mortality and cause of death statistics can save lives and benefit Nigeria's public health policies. Therefore, this study describes the prospects of a robust and efficient CRVS system to addressing Nigeria's data quandary by generating mortality and cause of death statistics for evidence-based decision-making. Hence, more attention is required towards scaling up Nigeria's CRVS system to generate timely and reliable population data and harness the same to drive and monitor Nigeria's public health decision-making process.