Performance of four computer-coded verbal autopsy methods for cause of death assignment compared with physician coding on 24,000 deaths in low- and middle-income countries

Table 1 Dataset specifications

Variable	China	Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation	Million Death Study	Agincourt	Matlab
Region	China	N/A^a	India	South Africa	Bangladesh
Sample size	1,502	1,556	12,225	5,823	3,270
Ages	15+ years	15 to 105 years	1 to 59 months	15 to 64 years	20 to 64 years
Number of CODs	31	32	15	17	17
Population	Hospital deaths	Hospital deaths	Community deaths	Community deaths	Community deaths
Proportion ill-defined deaths^b	0%	0%	3%	12%	2%
Physician coding	Coding by a panel of three physicians assisted with medical records and diagnostic tests	Coding by one physician assisted with medical records and diagnostic tests	Dual, independent coding of VA records, disagreements resolved by reconciliation, and for remaining cases by adjudication by a third physician	Dual, independent coding of VA records, disagreements resolved by third physician.	Single physician re-coding of VA records after initial coding by another physician.

All VA data in the Million Death Study, Agincourt and Matlab studies were collected by non-medical field staff, and coded by medical staff. ^aThe full IHME hospital-based dataset includes 12,000 VA records from India, Philippines, Tanzania and Mexico and was released after this paper went to press; correspondence with the study team suggested these data were from Bangladesh but the full details of the 1,556 deaths are not published. ^bIll-defined deaths are International Classification of Diseases-10 codes R95-R99. VA, verbal autopsy.

ISSN: 1741-7015