title: An integrated national mortality surveillance system for death registration and mortality surveillance, China.
abstract: In China, sample-based mortality surveillance systems, such as the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention's disease surveillance points system and the Ministry of Health's vital registration system, have been used for decades to provide nationally representative data on health status for health-care decision-making and performance evaluation. However, neither system provided representative mortality and cause-of-death data at the provincial level to inform regional health service needs and policy priorities. Moreover, the systems overlapped to a considerable extent, thereby entailing a duplication of effort. In 2013, the Chinese Government combined these two systems into an integrated national mortality surveillance system to provide a provincially representative picture of total and cause-specific mortality and to accelerate the development of a comprehensive vital registration and mortality surveillance system for the whole country. This new system increased the surveillance population from 6 to 24% of the Chinese population. The number of surveillance points, each of which covered a district or county, increased from 161 to 605. To ensure representativeness at the provincial level, the 605 surveillance points were selected to cover China's 31 provinces using an iterative method involving multistage stratification that took into account the sociodemographic characteristics of the population. This paper describes the development and operation of the new national mortality surveillance system, which is expected to yield representative provincial estimates of mortality in China for the first time.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Shiwei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Statistics and Information, National Health and Family Planning Commission, Beijing, China .
authors.forename: Xiaoling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia .
authors.forename: Alan D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Lopez
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Lijun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Statistics and Information, National Health and Family Planning Commission, Beijing, China .
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: School of Science and Health, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia .
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Page
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Yunning
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Yichong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Jiangmei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Jinling
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: You
authors.affiliation: National Center for Chronic and Non-communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Nanwei Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100050, China .
authors.forename: Maigeng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D002423:Cause of Death; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D059019:Clinical Coding / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D003644:Death Certificates / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases / Q000145:classification; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*