Emerging chronic non-communicable diseases in rural communities of Northern Ethiopia: Evidence using population-based verbal autopsy method in Kilite Awlaelo surveillance site

Abstract

Introduction In countries where most deaths are outside health institutions and medical certification of death is absent, verbal autopsy (VA) method is used to estimate population level causes of death.Methods VA data were collected by trained lay interviewers for 409 deaths in the surveillance site. Two physicians independently assigned cause of death using the International Classification of Diseases manual.Results In general, infectious and parasitic diseases accounted for 35.9% of death, external causes 15.9%, diseases of the circulatory system 13.4% and perinatal causes 12.5% of total deaths. Mortalities attributed to maternal causes and malnutrition were low, 0.2 and 1.5%, respectively..