Vital statistics (government records)

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Vital statistics is accumulated data gathered on live births, deaths, migration, foetal deaths, marriages and divorces. The most common way of collecting information on these events is through civil registration, an administrative system used by governments to record vital events which occur in their populations. Efforts to improve the quality of vital statistics will therefore be closely related to the development of civil registration systems in countries. Civil registration followed the practice of churches keeping such records since the 19th century.

Contents

This article covers mainly the US, UK and Canada, with references to global standards.

Definitions

A vital statistics system is defined by the United Nations "as the total process of (a) collecting information by civil registration or enumeration on the frequency or occurrence of specified and defined vital events, as well as relevant characteristics of the events themselves and the person or persons concerned, and (b) compiling, processing, analyzing, evaluating, presenting, and disseminating these data in statistical form"[ citation needed ]

Civil registration is defined by the United Nations as the" continuous, permanent, compulsory, and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events (live births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages, and divorces) and other civil status events pertaining to the population as provided by decree, law or regulation, in accordance with the legal requirements in each country."[ citation needed ]

History

Prior to the creation of the General Register Office (GRO) in 1837, there was no national system of civil registration in England and Wales. Baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded in parish registers maintained by Church of England (Anglican) clergy. However, with the great increase in nonconformity and the gradual relaxation of the laws against Catholics and other dissenters from the late 17th century, more and more baptisms, marriages and burials were going unrecorded in the registers of the Anglican Church.

The increasingly poor state of English parish registration led to numerous attempts to shore up the system in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The Marriage Act of 1753 attempted to prevent 'clandestine' marriages by imposing a standard form of entry for marriages, which had to be signed by both parties to the marriage and by witnesses. Additionally, except in the case of Jews and Quakers, legal marriages had to be carried out according to the rites of the Church of England. Sir George Rose's Parochial Registers Act of 1812 laid down that all events had to be entered on standard entries in bound volumes. It also declared that the church registers of Nonconformists were not admissible in court as evidence of births, marriages and deaths. Only those maintained by the clergy of the Church of England could be presented in court as legal documents, and this caused considerable hardship for Nonconformists. A number of proposals were presented to Parliament to set up centralised registries for recording vital events in the 1820s but none came to fruition. [1]

Eventually, increasing concern that the poor registration of baptisms, marriages and burials undermined property rights, by making it difficult to establish lines of descent, coupled with the complaints of Nonconformists, led to the establishment in 1833 of a parliamentary Select Committee on Parochial Registration. This took evidence on the state of the parochial system of registration, and made proposals that were eventually incorporated into the 1836 Registration and Marriage Acts. In addition, the government wanted to survey matters such as infant mortality, fertility and literacy to bring about improvements in health and social welfare. The medical establishment advocated this because a rapidly growing population in the northern industrial towns – caused by the Industrial Revolution – had created severe overcrowding, and the links between poor living conditions and short life expectancy were now known.

The answer was the establishment of a civil registration system. It was hoped that improved registration of vital events would protect property rights through the more accurate recording of lines of descent. Civil registration would also remove the need for Nonconformists to rely upon the Church of England for registration, and provide medical data for research. [2] As a result, in 1836, legislation was passed that ordered the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales. This took effect from 1 July 1837. A General Register Office was set up in London and the office of Registrar General was established.

England and Wales were divided into 619 registration districts (623 from 1851), each under the supervision of a superintendent registrar. The districts were based on the recently introduced poor law unions. The registration districts were further divided into sub-districts (there could be two or more), each under the charge of registrars who were appointed locally.

The General Register Office for Scotland was created in 1854. The General Register Office (Northern Ireland) holds records from 1864 onward for what is now Northern Ireland.

Methods

While the number of births and deaths can be obtained by enumeration at certain points in time (e.g. censuses and surveys), civil registration collects this information on a continuous basis and is the only source that provides individuals with a legal document. For instance, the importance of birth registration as the first legal recognition of the child is emphasized in Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that "the child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents". United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and a number of non-governmental organizations (Plan International, Save the Children Fund, World Vision, etc.) have particularly promoted the human rights aspects of registration, while the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and World Health Organization (WHO) have focused more on the statistical aspects of civil registration.

Registration generally takes place at the local level, and the data are then aggregated to province or state and then national totals.

Convention on Rights of the Child

Countries which are signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are therefore expected to set up systems to register the births of all children. Non-registration of a child can have negative consequences on the wider enjoyment of a child's fundamental rights to benefits such as identity, inheritance, education, health and other social services. Birth registration is also part of a broader strategy to ensure that children are less vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, especially if separated from their parents. In the absence of a functioning birth registration system, it is difficult to see how a country can enforce age-related legal concerns such as schooling, child labour, juvenile justice, early marriage, sexual exploitation and military recruitment. Recent natural disasters and calamities have also demonstrated the utility of a birth certificate for reuniting lost children with their families.

Records of death and cause of death

Many civil registration systems also collect information on causes of death. Statistics based on these death records are of particular importance in public health for identifying the magnitude and distribution of major disease problems, and are essential for the design, implementation, monitoring, and assessment of health programmes and policies.

Global health records

Toronto scientist, professor Prabhat Jha argues that inexpensive recording of vital statistics in developing countries is the most effective means to improve global health [3] and has outlined 5 options for expanding Cause of Death reporting. [4]

"Despite the importance of tracking causes of death and the tradition since 1893 of standardisation of definitions and coding for causes of death in the International Classification of Diseases and Injuries (ICD), global assessments of causes of death are a major analytical challenge. Vital registration systems that include medical certification of the cause of death captured about 18.8 million deaths of an estimated annual total of 51.7 million deaths in 2005, which is the latest year for which the largest number of countries reported deaths from a vital registration system. Even for these deaths, the comparability of findings on the leading causes of death is affected by variation in certification skills among physicians, the diagnostic and pathological data available at the time of completing a death certificate, variations in medical culture in choosing the underlying cause, and legal and institutional frameworks for governing mortality reporting. For the remaining deaths that are not medically certified, many different data sources and diagnostic approaches must be used from surveillance systems, demographic research sites, surveys, censuses, disease registries, and police records to construct a consolidated picture of causes of death in various populations. Because of the variety of data sources and their associated biases, causes of death assessments are inherently uncertain and subject to vigorous debate." [5]

National agencies

United States

The recording of vital statistics in the United States is the responsibility of the states, not the federal government. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control: [6]

In the United States, legal authority for the registration of these events [i.e., births, deaths, marriages, and divorces] resides individually with the 50 States, 2 cities (Washington, DC, and New York City), and 5 territories (Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). These jurisdictions are responsible for maintaining registries of vital events and for issuing copies of birth, marriage, divorce, and death certificates.

Individuals seeking documentation of a particular birth, death, or marriage must contact the appropriate state, city, or territory office that holds those records.

The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics gathers statistics from the states, whose registration procedures may be centralized or decentralized. [7] The CDC analyzes the data gathered to publish monthly and annual reports on such topics as infant mortality, family size, maternal and infant healthcare, fertility rates, death rates, and so on. [8]

In addition, the Social Security Death Index provides nationwide birth and death records of deceased individuals. The Census Bureau publishes voluminous reports based on census data, including the American Community Survey, the U.S. Economic Census, and the Current Population Survey. However, the Census Bureau is forbidden by law from releasing personal information about individuals until 72 years after the information was gathered. [9]

United Kingdom

The agency responsible for overseeing this system in the United Kingdom is the Office for National Statistics. Vital statistics for the UK can be found here.

Canada

The agency responsible for overseeing the vital statistics system in Canada is the Vital Statistics Program of the Centre for Population Health Data, a division of Statistics Canada. Vital statistics for Canada can be found here.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demography of the United Kingdom</span>

The population of the United Kingdom was estimated at over 67.0 million in 2020. It is the 21st most populated country in the world and has a population density of 270 people per square kilometre, with England having significantly greater density than Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Almost a third of the population lives in south east England, which is predominantly urban and suburban, with about 9 million in the capital city, London, whose population density is just over 5,200 per square kilometre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infant mortality</span> Death of children under the age of 1

Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. Similarly, the child mortality rate, also known as the under-five mortality rate compares the death rate of children up to the age of five.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mortality rate</span> Deaths per 1000 individuals per year

Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of deaths per 1,000 individuals per year; thus, a mortality rate of 9.5 in a population of 1,000 would mean 9.5 deaths per year in that entire population, or 0.95% out of the total. It is distinct from "morbidity", which is either the prevalence or incidence of a disease, and also from the incidence rate.

A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a person. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth. Depending on the jurisdiction, a record of birth might or might not contain verification of the event by such as a midwife or doctor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stillbirth</span> Death of a fetus before or during delivery, resulting in delivery of a dead baby

Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The term is in contrast to miscarriage, which is an early pregnancy loss, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, where the baby dies a short time after being born alive.

<i>Koseki</i> Japanese family register

A koseki (戸籍) or family register is a Japanese family registry. Japanese law requires all Japanese households to make notifications of their vital records to their local authority, which compiles such records encompassing all Japanese citizens within their jurisdiction.

Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, illegitimacy, also known as bastardy, has been the status of a child born outside marriage, such a child being known as a bastard, a love child, a natural child, or illegitimate. In Scots law, the terms natural son and natural daughter bear the same implications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death certificate</span> Official record of the date, location, and cause of a persons death

A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as entered in an official register of deaths.

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a U.S. government agency that provides statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the public health of the American people. It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System. It is headquartered at University Town Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.

The General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO) is the section of the United Kingdom HM Passport Office responsible for the civil registration of births, adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outside the UK if they involve a UK citizen and qualify to be registered in various miscellaneous registers. With a small number of historic exceptions involving military personnel, it does not deal with records of such events occurring within the land or territorial waters of Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland; those entities' registration systems have always been separate from England and Wales.

A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms, marriages, children, and burials are recorded. Along with these vital details, church goods, the parish's response to briefs, and notes on various happenings in the parish were also recorded. These elaborate records existed for the purpose of preventing bigamy and consanguineous marriage.

Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different US states. It can be called a civil registry, civil register, vital records, and other terms, and the office responsible for receiving the registrations can be called a bureau of vital statistics, registry of vital records and statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create a legal document that can be used to establish and protect the rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Register Office for Scotland</span> Directorate of the Scottish Government

The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adoptions in Scotland from 1854 to 2011. It was also responsible for the statutes relating to the formalities of marriage and conduct of civil marriage in Scotland. It administered the census of Scotland's population every ten years. It also kept the Scottish National Health Service Central Register.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Register Office</span> Civil registries in Commonwealth-related nations

General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth nations and Ireland. The GRO is the government agency responsible for the recording of vital records such as births, deaths, and marriages, which may also include adoptions, stillbirths, civil unions, etc., and historically, sometimes included records relating to deeds and other property transactions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vital record</span> Government records of citizens life events (births, deaths, marriages, etc.)

Vital records are records of life events kept under governmental authority, including birth certificates, marriage licenses, separation agreements, divorce certificates or divorce party and death certificates. In some jurisdictions, vital records may also include records of civil unions or domestic partnerships.

A register office or The General Register Office, much more commonly but erroneously registry office, is a British government office where births, deaths, marriages, civil partnership, stillbirths and adoptions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are registered. It is the licensed local of civil registry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family in the United States</span> Family support system involving two married individuals supporting their offspring

The traditional family structure in the United States is considered a family support system involving two married individuals providing care and stability for their biological offspring. However, this two-parent, heterosexual, nuclear family has become less prevalent, and nontraditional family forms have become more common. The family is created at birth and establishes ties across generations. Those generations, the extended family of aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins, can hold significant emotional and economic roles for the nuclear family.

The Million Death Study (MDS) is an ongoing human premature mortality study conducted in India. It began in 1998 and end in 2014. Among a sample size of 14 million Indians, approximately 1 million deaths are assigned medical causes through the Verbal Autopsy method to determine disease patterns and direct public health policy. The principal investigator of the study is Dr. Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research and professor of epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada.

CRVS Systems stands for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems and represents the interoperability of three separate systems: Civil Registration, Health Information, and Vital Statistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civil registration in Australia</span>

Civil registration in Australia of births, deaths and marriages as well other life events is carried out and maintained by each state and territory in Australia, in an office called a Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. is compulsory in each jurisdiction, though the procedures and information recorded varies between jurisdictions. Access to information on the register is restricted by period or relationship, and is usually provided at a fee in the form of certificates. Nowadays, certificates can also be ordered online, and will be posted to the applicant, often with some delay.

References

  1. ↑ Higgs, E. Registration before civil registration at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/View?path=Browse/Essays%20%28by%20kind%29&active=yes&mno=2088 Retrieved 18 August 2013
  2. ↑ Higgs, E. The early development of the General Register Office at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/View?path=Browse/Essays%20%28by%20kind%29&active=yes&mno=2002 Retrieved 18 August 2013
  3. ↑ Pagliaro, Jennifer (March 28, 2012). "How Toronto-based epidemiologist Prabhat Jha is counting the dead to save the living". Toronto Star. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  4. ↑ Jha, Prabhat (2012). "Counting the dead is one of the world's best investments to reduce premature mortality". Hypothesis. 10.
  5. ↑ Lozano, Rafael; Naghavi, Mohsen; Foreman, Kyle; Lim, Stephen; Shibuya, Kenji; Aboyans, Victor; Abraham, Jerry; Adair, Timothy; Aggarwal, Rakesh; Ahn, Stephanie Y.; Almazroa, Mohammad A.; Alvarado, Miriam; Anderson, H Ross; Anderson, Laurie M.; Andrews, Kathryn G.; Atkinson, Charles; Baddour, Larry M.; Barker-Collo, Suzanne; Bartels, David H.; Bell, Michelle L.; Benjamin, Emelia J.; Bennett, Derrick; Bhalla, Kavi; Bikbov, Boris; Abdulhak, Aref Bin; Birbeck, Gretchen; Blyth, Fiona; Bolliger, Ian; Boufous, Soufiane; et al. (2012). "Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010". The Lancet. 380 (9859): 2095–2128. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61728-0. hdl: 10536/DRO/DU:30050819 . PMID   23245604. S2CID   1541253.
  6. ↑ "About the National Vital Statistics System". National Center for Health Statistics. Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
  7. ↑ "Health Department Governance (map)". Public Health Professionals Gateway. Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
  8. ↑ "Vital Statistics of the United States". National Center for Health Statistics. Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
  9. ↑ "72-Year Rule". www.census.gov. Retrieved 20 November 2015.

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