From: Sopo Belkania
Sent: 10 May, 2018 06:09
To: Mariana Mkurnali; Maia Nikoleishvili
Subject: Fwd: Invitation - Cause of Death Quality Assessment and Analysis

From: GBD Admin <GBD-Admin@unimelb.edu.au>
Date: May 10, 2018 at 05:57:52 GMT+5:30
To: "sbelkania@moh.gov.ge" <sbelkania@moh.gov.ge>
Cc: "fradkinao@who.int" <fradkinao@who.int>, "steinc@who.int" <steinc@who.int>, Kate Briggs <kate.briggs@unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Invitation - Cause of Death Quality Assessment and Analysis

 

Dear Dr Sofiko Belkania,

 

 

Capacity building workshop on “Assessing data quality and using mortality and causes of death statistics for national planning”, Bangkok, Thailand, 18-22 June 2018

 

We are pleased to inform you that the University of Melbourne, as part of the Data for Health Initiative funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will convene a technical workshop to help build country capacity to critically appraise the quality of cause of death statistics, and in methods to use these data for monitoring progress with national and global development goals.

 

The workshop is being convened in collaboration with the WHO Regional Offices for Europe, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific, and with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in order to assist countries to strengthen their Civil Registration and Vital Statistics systems as called for under the Asian and Pacific CRVS Decade, 2015-2024

 

The workshop will be held in Bangkok from 18-22 June 2018. The venue for the workshop will be at the headquarters for UNESCAP.

 

Participants (maximum of two per country) will spend the first half of the week learning how to use an electronic tool for mortality data quality assessment, known as ANACONDA (Analysis of Causes of (National) Death for Action). Training in ANACONDA builds capacity among individuals and institutions to comprehensively and systematically assess the quality of mortality and cause of death data. In particular, the tool helps to identify the pattern and extent of poor diagnostic practices in countries that significantly reduce the policy value of routinely collected cause of death data.

The second part of the week will go more in depth into methods and standards used in ANACONDA and in advanced mortality analysis (the ANACONDA Plus course). The training consists of a series of extended analytical modules that show how to apply this knowledge to enhance the policy value of mortality data. This is done through building analytical capacity in the core epidemiological and demographic concepts that underlie ANACONDA, based on knowledge gained from decades of recorded mortality and cause of death data in a wide range of countries.

 

The University of Melbourne would like to invite you to nominate two representatives from your country to participate in this important capacity building workshop. Ideally, the participants should have responsibilities for the collation, quality assessment, analysis and/or dissemination of vital statistics, including causes of death, in your country.  We expect that one of the participants would be from the Ministry of Health, and the other from a National Statistics Office if that is the agency mandated with collecting and disseminating the official vital statistics in your country.

 

All participation costs for the two representatives from your country, including visa costs, local meals and accommodation, and air travel to and from Bangkok as well as airport transfer fees, will be met by the University of Melbourne and its implementation partners in the Data for Health Initiative.

 

The working languages of the workshop will be English and Russian. All workshop materials will be translated into Russian, and simultaneous translation will be provided for the week of the workshop.

 

We look forward to receiving your reply at your earliest convenience, but no later than 16 May 2018. Following your confirmation and advice, the University of Melbourne will then communicate directly with the proposed workshop participant(s) to provide them with the necessary documentation and materials in preparation for the Workshop. Please note that in order to derive maximum benefit from the workshop, participants will be expected to bring one or more years of recent vital registration data on causes of death, as well as their laptop, to the training.

 

Please copy your reply to Dr Claudia Stein, Director, Division of Evidence, Research and Information at WHO/EURO in Copenhagen, with whom we are collaborating to deliver this important training.

 

If you have any questions please contact us at GBD-Admin@unimelb.edu.au

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Alan D Lopez AC FAHMS | University of Melbourne Laureate Professor  | Rowden-White Chair of Global Health and Burden of Disease Measurement

Director, Global Burden of Disease Group | Director, Bloomberg Initiative for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics

 

Melbourne School of Population and Global Health

The University of Melbourne | Level 5, 207 Bouverie St, Carlton 3053 VIC, Australia

T: +61 3 9035 4157  M: +61 400 115 231 E: alan.lopez@unimelb.edu.au

W: http://mspgh.unimelb.edu.au/dataforhealth