Civil registration of deaths
Worldwide, nearly half of deaths are registered with information on cause-of-death. However, incomplete death registration and incorrect or missing information on cause-of-death limit the use of these data in many countries.
A total of 84 countries collect medium- or high-quality information on deaths and their causes, meaning that the data are of sufficient quality for monitoring trends in mortality by cause. Just over half of upper-middle-income countries and over 80% of high-income countries collect medium- or high-quality cause-of-death data.
At the other extreme, 81 countries collect data of very low quality or do not register deaths at all. All low-income countries and two-thirds of lower-middle-income countries fall in this category.