Analysis of the quality of information on premature mortality due to chronic noncommunicable diseases and its use in the Sustainable Development Goals

ABSTRACT

Background

The premature mortality rate (PMR) from noncommunicable chronic diseases (NCD) is an indicator used by the United Nations (UN) to track one of the objectives proposed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The PMR measures the effectiveness of prevention, treatment and health promotion actions, but the sources used to estimate this indicator must be reliable.

Objective

This study aims to analyze the potentialities, limitations, and completeness of the information used to calculate and analyze this indicator.

Method

We used information on mortality from the Mortality Information System (SIM) from 2000 to 2016. The proportion of deaths with poorly defined causes and the percentage of incompleteness of the variables race, level of education, occupation, marital status, place of birth, and medical care were estimated.

Results

Approximately 68% of the municipalities presented adequate quality of information on the cause of death. Race was the only variable that presented good overall completeness.

Conclusion

The SIM has proved to be a good source of data for estimating the PMR; however, its quality is not the same across ranges. Although most municipalities present good data completeness, many are still poorly filled, and it is necessary to identify them so that a reliable indicator can be estimated.

Keywords:
mortality; premature; chronic disease; information systems