A feasibility study on using smartphones to conduct short-version verbal autopsies in rural China

摘要

BackgroundCurrently there are two main sources of mortality data with cause of death assignments in China. Both sources–the Ministry of Health-Vital Registration system and the Chinese Disease Surveillance Point system–present their own challenges. A new approach to cause of death assignment is a smartphone-based shortened version of a verbal autopsy survey. This study evaluates the feasibility and acceptability of this new method conducted by township health care providers (THP) and village doctors (VD) in rural China, where a large proportion of deaths occur in homes and cause of death data are inaccurate or lacking.