Population Health Metrics Research Consortium Gold Standard Verbal Autopsy Data 2005-2011

These data were collected as part of the Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) project. The files contain verbal autopsies (VAs) that were collected at six sites in four countries (India, Mexico, Tanzania, and the Philippines) using a standardized VA questionnaire developed by the PHMRC. The three datasets correspond to the main questionnaire subcomponents: neonate, child, and adult. The individual VAs are matched with "gold standard" diagnoses of underlying causes of death, which were established from medical records using stringent diagnostic criteria, including laboratory, pathology and medical imaging findings. All "open narrative" portions of the VAs were parsed for individual words or stems, which are included as variables in the final dataset, to remove any potentially identifying information in that portion of the interview. Variables that were analyzed as "health care experience" in past research are identified in the codebook.