OBJECTIVES: to assess the quality of the information in infants'death certificates and reliability of the reported underlying death cause in children under one year old. METHODS: information was obtained from all death certificates of children under one year old between 2002 and 2005 whose mothers declared their addresses as being Monte Claros, Minas Gerais when death occurred. To verify report reliability of the underlying death cause, children's death certificates issued in 2004 and a new death certificate was filled (New Death Certificate) to be compared with the ori-ginal (Original Death Certificate) based on hospital records. The kappa test was used for concordance level comparison. RESULTS: there was a high rate of missing data in infants'death certificates. Reliability of the underlying death cause was considered excellent only for the congenital malformation group (kappa=0.83). A moderate concordance was noted for the more common prematurity related causes (kappa=0.57). The lowest concordance related to the infection death cause group (kappa=0.24). CONCLUSIONS: the need for quality improvement in the information contained in children's death certificates was verified.
Child mortality; Underlying death cause; Death certificates
