The Assessment of Vital Statistics in China

China, Quan Shaowei

2014 May Daejeon

Is vital statistics produced from civil registration?

• Partly

• The total population, fertility rate and mortality rate is

produced from census and survey, carried out by NBS.

And the household registration by the Ministry of Public

Security also have a household population statistics,

include total population, fertility rate and mortality rate,

always a little different from these from NBS, especial the

figures by regions. The marriage, divorce, cause of death

is from civil registration. The maternal and child health is

from monitoring.

Does the vital statistics system ensures

• Universal coverage? Yes, but population survey is sample

survey. The monitoring of maternal and child health is also not universal

coverage, there are 336 monitoring units from 2007.

• Is continuous? Yes. The registered population statistics is from

1950s. The sample survey is from 1983.

• Confidentiality? For the census and survey, the confidentiality

is ruled by statistics law. Other civil registration is ruled by the

regulations or laws of separate agencies .

• Regular dissemination? Yes. by yearbook ,annual bulletin,

most of them can be obtained in website.

What is the role of health institutions in the system?

• The issuer of birth certificate and death

certificate.

• Carry out the monitoring of maternal and child

health.

• The compiler and publisher of the data of cause

of death and of maternal and child health

Is there a body coordinating between statistics, civil registration, health and

other institutions?• No.

• Most coordination work is done as needed of the

agencies,

for assessing the accuracy and coverage of their

own data.

Do the definitions of vital events in the vital statistics

system comply with international standards?

• Mostly

• The definition of marriage and divorce

may a little different from the international

standards, but need verification to

concerned agencies.

Topics comply with recommended?

For through the civil registration system: No.

• The live birth: the characteristics of the mother and the father are

not included completely.

• The foetal death: I don’t know, need verification.

• Marriage and divorce: the characteristics of bride and groom are

not included completely.

• Above all, the rural/urban definition of the civil registration is

different from that of NBS. Most agencies use the definition of

agriculture and non-agriculture definition. For this definition gives

the attribution of everyone who has household registration, more

Conveniently when register.

Topics comply with recommended?

• For through the census and surveys: No.

• In census, the members of the household don’t have

indicator of “the line number of his or her mother,

and also don’t have the survival of parents”.

• In surveys, besides the lacks above, the women 15

and over don’t have the total number of children

ever born alive and so on. Just have the childbearing

information in the last year.

The coverage of civil registration?

• In China, the civil registration comprise the live birth,

the death, the cause of death, the maternal and child

health, the marriage and the divorce.

• For live birth and death, we can assess the coverage

with different source of civil registration data and

census or survey.

• For other data, we don’t have direct source of data to

make the assessment, we can assess them with the

previous data and make analysis with population at risk.

Quality assessment methods in the vital statistics system?

• Yes, but not institutionalized.

• For the live birth, there are three kinds of registration and

also the census or survey for the live birth, so we can

compare these data in county or level, but I think only a

part of counties have made the assessment, for there isn’t

a institution to coordinate.

• For the death, we can compare the death data from the

health institution and the public security institution, the

funeral data from the civil affairs institution and the

census or survey.

Possible Strategies• The coordinating. Including the standard and institution.

Better to establish a independent body or assign one

specific agency to carry out the coordinating work.

• Need national network, and share to other agencies. For

that, a comprehensive database based on unique identity

card number is projected, in which all civil registrations

are included and the data will update on time.

• The application of unified definition, for example the

rural/urban definition by NBS.