Reengineering Vital Registration and Statistics Systems

Abstract

In his timely essay, “Reengineering Vital Registration and Statistics Systems for the United States,” Charles J. Rothwell raises important issues about the registration of vital events in the United States (1). There is no question about the value of taking advantage of electronic technology to improve the quality and increase the utility of the registration system. The partnership mentioned by Rothwell is a step in the right direction. Currently, only a small portion of the data collected on paper death certificates is captured in machine-readable format. The rest — including valuable address and occupation information — is lost forever for population-based research and public health purposes. My primary concern, however, is about the issues that were not discussed by Rothwell. First, the paper death certificate is a document whose legality precedes its public health importance. Unless electronic documents are legally accepted, we must have the paper documents.

Keywords

• chronic disease
• prevention
• public health
• letter to the editor
• vital statistics