SDMX Metadata Concepts

Download PDF

0.a. Goal

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

0.b. Target

Target 3.6: By 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents

0.c. Indicator

Indicator 3.6.1: Death rate due to road traffic injuries

0.e. Metadata update

2021-03-01

0.g. International organisations(s) responsible for global monitoring

World Health Organization (WHO)

1.a. Organisation

World Health Organization (WHO)

2.a. Definition and concepts

Definition:

Death rate due to road traffic injuries as defined as the number of road traffic fatal injury deaths per 100,000 population.

Concepts:

Numerator: Number of deaths due to road traffic crashes

Absolute figure indicating the number of people who die as a result of a road traffic crash.

Denominator: Population (number of people by country)

2.b. Unit of measure

Rate per 100 000 population

2.c. Classifications

Road injuries are defined in terms of the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) (See Annex A of the WHO methods and data sources for global causes of death, 2000–2019)

3.a. Data sources

For the road traffic deaths we have two sources of data. Data from Global Status Report on Road Safety survey and Vital registration or certificate deaths data that WHO receive every year from member states (ministries of health).

For the population, we used data from the United Nations / Department of Economic and Social Affairs/ Population division.

3.b. Data collection method

The methodology involved collecting data from a number of different sectors and stakeholders in each country is as follows. National Data Coordinators (NDCs), who were nominated by their governments, were trained in the project methodology. As representatives of their ministries, they were required to identify up to eight other road safety experts within their country from different sectors (e.g. health, police, transport, nongovernmental organizations and/or academia) and to facilitate a consensus meeting of these respondents. While each expert responded to the questionnaire based on their expertise, the consensus meeting facilitated by NDCs allowed for discussion of all responses, and the group used this discussion to agree on one final set of information that best represented their country’s situation at the time (up to 2014, using the most recent data available). This was then submitted to the World Health Organization (WHO). More details are in the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018 and the WHO methods and data sources for global causes of death, 2000–2019.

3.c. Data collection calendar

WHO annually requests tabulated death registration data (including all causes of death) from Member States. Countries may submit annual cause-of-death statistics to WHO on an ongoing basis.

3.d. Data release calendar

End of 2020

3.e. Data providers

The road traffic deaths data were provided nationally by mainly three ministries, namely, ministry of health, ministry of interior and ministry of transport.

3.f. Data compilers

WHO is the organization responsible for compilation and reporting on this indicator at the global level.

3.g. Institutional mandate

According to Article 64 of its constitution, WHO is mandated to request each Member State to provide statistics on mortality. Furthermore, the WHO Nomenclature Regulations of 1967 affirms the importance of compiling and publishing statistics of mortality and morbidity in comparable form. Member States started to report mortality data to WHO since the early fifties and this reporting activity is continuing until today.

4.a. Rationale

Road traffic injuries remain an important public health problem, particularly for low-income and middle-income countries.

4.b. Comment and limitations

There are no vital registration data for all countries to make comparison against the data received on the survey. Also we cannot collect road traffic data every year using this methodology outlined in the Global status report.

4.c. Method of computation

The methods used for the analysis of causes of death depend on the type of data available from countries:

For countries with a high-quality vital registration system including information on cause of death, the vital registration that member states submit to the WHO Mortality Database were used, with adjustments where necessary, e.g. for under-reporting of deaths, unknown age and sex, and ill-defined causes of deaths.

For countries without high-quality death registration data, cause of death estimates are calculated using other data, including household surveys with verbal autopsy, sample or sentinel registration systems, special studies.

4.d. Validation

The number of deaths due to road injury were country consulted with country designated focal points (usually at the Ministry of Health or National Statistics Office) as part of the full set of causes of death prior to the release.

4.e. Adjustments

Deaths of unknown sex were redistributed pro-rata within cause-age groups of known sexes, and then deaths of unknown age were redistributed pro-rata within cause-sex groups of known ages.

4.f. Treatment of missing values (i) at country level and (ii) at regional level

  • At country level

For countries with high-quality cause-of-death statistics, interpolation/extrapolation was done for missing country-years; for countries with only low-quality or no data on causes of death, modelling was used. Complete methodology may be found here:

WHO methods and data sources for global causes of death, 2000–2019 (https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/gho-documents/global-health-estimates/ghe2019_cod_methods.pdf )

  • At regional and global levels

NA

4.g. Regional aggregations

Country estimates of number of deaths by cause are summed to obtain regional and global aggregates.

4.h. Methods and guidance available to countries for the compilation of the data at the national level

The cause of death categories (including road injury) follow the definitions in terms of the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). Please see Annex Table A of the WHO methods and data sources for global causes of death, 2000–2019 (https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/gho-documents/global-health-estimates/ghe2019_cod_methods.pdf)

4.i. Quality management

The World Health Organization (WHO) established a Reference Group on Health Statistics in 2013 to provide advice on population health statistics to WHO with a focus on methodological and data issues related to the measurement of mortality and cause-of-death patterns. The group facilitated interaction between multilateral development institutions and other independent academic groups with WHO expert groups in specific subject areas including methods to the estimation on causes of death.

4.j. Quality assurance

The data principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) provide a foundation for continually reaffirming trust in WHO’s information and evidence on public health. The five principles are designed to provide a framework for data governance for WHO. The principles are intended primarily for use by WHO staff across all parts of the Organization in order to help define the values and standards that govern how data that flows into, across and out of WHO is collected, processed, shared and used. These principles are made publicly available so that they may be used and referred to by Member States and non-state actors collaborating with WHO.

4.k. Quality assessment

All statements and claims made officially by WHO headquarters about population-level (country, regional, global) estimates of health status (e.g. mortality, incidence, prevalence, burden of disease), are cleared by the Department of Data and Analytics (DNA) through the executive clearance process. This includes the GATHER statement. GATHER promotes best practices in reporting health estimates using a checklist of 18 items that should be reported every time new global health estimates are published, including descriptions of input data and estimation methods. Developed by a working group convened by the World Health Organization, the guidelines aim to define and promote good practice in reporting health estimates.

5. Data availability and disaggregation

Data availability:

Almost 70 countries currently provide WHO with regular high-quality data on mortality by age, sex and causes of death, and another 58 countries submit data of lower quality. However, comprehensive cause-of-death estimates are calculated by WHO systematically for all of its Member States (with a certain population threshold) every 3 years.

Time series:

From 2000 to 2019

Disaggregation:

Sex, age group

6. Comparability/deviation from international standards

Sources of discrepancies:

WHO's estimation of road traffic rates are, in many countries, different to the official estimates for the reasons described above that relate to our methodology.

There are also differences in the data used for population between the national data and the estimates produced by the United Nations department of population.

7. References and Documentation

URL:

http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention

References:

Global status report on road safety 2018 (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241565684)

WHO methods and data sources for global causes of death, 2000–2019

(https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/gho-documents/global-health-estimates/ghe2019_cod_methods.pdf)