Completeness and Quality of Khartoum Mortuary Data

Authors: Kavi Bhalla, Jerry P Abraham and Safa Abdalla

Date: July 6, 2010

Objective: To do a crude test of the completeness and quality of the Khartoum Mortuary Data

Method: The number of deaths in the mortuary records was compared with an estimate of the number of deaths expected in Khartoum state

Findings:

- The mortuary dataset is not representative of all-cause deaths (80% of deaths are injury related)

- The mortuary dataset captures a substantial fraction of injury deaths in Khartoum (84% by this calculation).

Background

- Data Source Analyzed: Khartoum Teaching Hospital 2008 records

o There are two mortuaries in the Khartoum Metropolitan Area located at the Khartoum Teaching Hospital and the Omdurman Teaching Hospital. The Omdurman mortuary was established in 2009. Thus, until 2008, the Khartoum Teaching Hospital Mortuary was the only mortuary in the region. Thus, we test the completeness and quality of this dataset.

- Analysis in this report should be repeated with Census 2008 data:

o The analysis in this report uses crude estimates of population and mortality in Khartoum. Typically these have been extrapolated from estimates available for the country in international databases. Accurate data for population and mortality in Khartoum will be available from the 2008 Census. This analysis should be updated then.

TABLE 1: Distribution of causes in the 2008 Khartoum Mortuary Dataset