Home / Central Data Catalog / MWI-MEIRU-VACOD-2001-V1
central

VA Verbal Autopsy Cause of Death

Malawi, 2004 - 2019
Get Microdata
Reference ID
MWI-MEIRU-VACOD-2001-v1
Producer(s)
Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit
Collections
Karonga HDSS
Metadata
Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Nov 14, 2025
Last modified
Nov 15, 2025
Page views
45112
Downloads
110
  • Identification
  • Version
  • Scope
  • Coverage
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Data collection
  • Access policy
  • Data Access
  • Metadata production

    • Identification

    Survey ID number

    MWI-MEIRU-VACOD-2001-v1
    Title

    VA Verbal Autopsy Cause of Death
    Country
    Name Country code
    Malawi MWI
    Study type

    Demographic Surveillance
    Abstract

    Verbal Autopsy are carried out to ascertain cause of death when access to medical care, accurate diagnostics and death certification are lacking. A medically trained interviewer speaks with a person who was close to the deceased leading up to the death, firstly asking them to describe in their own words what happened and then leading them through a series of closed questions related to the symptoms the deceased experienced. The narrative and responses are reviewed by two independent clinician who then assign cause of death. If they do not agree a third clinician reviews the case.

    Verbal autopsy is carried out for all deaths that occur in the Karonga DSS. The questionnaire used has change over time, with the biggest change occurring in 2014 when the form was brought into line with the WHO version and was collected electronically.

    Data collection is ongoing and data tables will be updated periodically.

    NHSRC approval number: 419
    Unit of Analysis

    Individual

    Version

    Version Description

    v1: Edited data, first version, for internal use only
    Version Date

    2020-05-11

    Scope

    Notes

    Respondent, medical history, symptoms, maternal, neonatal, external causes, risk factors, treatment, cause of death
    Topics
    Topic Vocabulary
    Cause of Death MeSH
    Autopsy MeSH
    Malawi MeSH

    Coverage

    Geographic Coverage

    The Karonga HDSS surrounds the port village of Chilumba, on Lake Malawi, in the southern part of Karonga District . The surveillance area is located between latitudes 10.388 and 10.508S and longitudes 34.088 and 34.278E, covering an area of approximately 135 km2. The lake shore and the Nyika National Park form the boundaries to the east and west, respectively, whereas the boundaries to the north and south are delineated by village boundaries
    Universe

    Verbal autopsies are carried out for all deaths occurring within the DSS area, however they may also be used in other Karonga-based studies.

    Producers and sponsors

    Primary investigators
    Name Affiliation
    Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit London School of Hygein and Tropical Medicine
    Other Identifications/Acknowledgments
    Name
    MEIRU Core datamanagement team

    Data collection

    Dates of Data Collection
    Start End
    2004-01-03 2019-09-18
    Mode of data collection
    • Proxy Respondent [proxy]
    Data Collectors
    Name Abbreviation
    Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit MEIRU

    Access policy

    Archive where study is originally stored

    Chilumba

    Data Access

    Access authority
    Name
    Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit
    Access conditions

    These data are made available for licensed access under the following conditions:

    1. Data and other material provided by MEIRU will not be redistributed or sold to other individuals, institutions or organisations without MEIRU's written agreement.

    2. In the case of multi-centre datasets, data originating from a single contributing member centre of the collaboration may not be analysed or reported on in isolation without the express permission of the member centre concerned.

    3. No attempt will be made to re-identify respondents, and there will be no use of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently. Any such discovery will be reported immediately to MEIRU.

    4. No attempt will be made to produce links between datasets provided by MEIRU or between MEIRU data and other datasets that could identify individuals.

    5. Any books, articles, conference papers, theses, dissertations, reports or other publications employing data obtained from MEIRU will cite the source, in line with the citation requirement provided with the dataset.

    6. An electronic copy of all publications based on the requested data will be sent to MEIRU.

    7. MEIRU, MEIRU research collaborators and the relevant funding agencies bear no responsibility for the data's use or interpretation or inferences based upon it.

    Metadata production

    DDI Document ID

    DDI-MWI-MEIRU-VA-COD-2002-v1
    Producers
    Name Abbreviation Affiliation Role
    Themba Chirwa TC MEIRU Metadata entry and editing officer
    Chifundo Kanjala CK MEIRU Documentation planning and supervision
    Elizabeth Nancy Munthali ENM MEIRU Metadata supervisor
    Estelle McLean EM LSHTM Production of the documentation used to create this DDI document
    Date of Metadata Production

    2020-05-11

    Metadata version

    DDI Document version

    version 1 (May 2020)
    Back to Catalog