INDEPTH NETWORK CAUSE-SPECIFIC MORTALITY Applying the InterVA-4 model to determine causes of death in rural Ethiopia

Background: In Ethiopia, most deaths take place at home and routine certification of cause of death by physicians is lacking. As a result, reliable cause of death (CoD) data are often not available. Recently, a computerized method for interpretation of verbal autopsy (VA) data, called InterVA, has been developed and used. It calculates the probability of a set of CoD given the presence of circumstances, signs, and symptoms reported duringVA interviews.Weapplied the InterVAmodel to describeCoD in a rural population ofEthiopia. Objective: VA data for 436/599 (72.7%) deaths that occurred during 20102011 were included. InterVA-4 was used to interpret the VA data into probable cause of death. Cause-specific mortality fraction was used to describe frequency of occurrence of death from specific causes. Results: InterVA-4 was able to give likely cause(s) of death for 401/436 of the cases (92.0%). Overall, 35.0 % of the total deaths were attributed to communicable diseases, and 30.7 % to chronic non-communicable diseases. Tuberculosis (12.5%) and acute respiratory tract infections (10.4%) were the most frequent causes followed by neoplasms (9.6%) and diseases of circulatory system (7.2%). Conclusion: InterVA-4 can produce plausible estimates of the major public health problems that can guide public health interventions. We encourage further validation studies, in local settings, so that InterVA can b