Vital statistics of a country play important roles in terms of program planning, regular monitoring of population changes, and tracking health status. A well-functioning registration system depends on how de-duplicated event notifications are received on time for further processing. In Bangladesh, birth registration was 54% in 2010, and death registration was less than 14% since the introduction of the birth & death registration information system (BDRIS) till February 2014. In regard to the timeliness, only 1.4% of the birth registrations were done within 45 days of birth in 2013.
Our assumption was that if we can utilize the potential local information channels – i.e parents/family members health worker, facility service provider, local religious leader, village police, local leader etc., we will probably be able to receive timely and complete notifications of births and deaths. However, there is also a possibility that the same event notification can be received from different information channels. We allowed that consciously to see which channel/s is/are more effective in terms of coverage and timely event notifications.
We designed the digital information flow from the sources through a call center to the project staff with the final destination of data to a central server. This was done by providing a tablet PC with a notification app to the community workers and facility service providers. For other information sources, they used their smartphones to send the notifications through the notification app. Those who did not have a smartphone or the app, called call-center. De-duplication of event notifications was done through physical verification by the project staff.
Supported by the Global Affairs Canada (GAC) through Cowater International, we conducted this cross-sectional study in two subdistricts of Tangail (Basail subdistrict) and Brahmanbaria (Kasba subdistrict) districts. Coverage of the event notifications was measured by a survey in the selected area of the two study subdistricts. We analyzed data using descriptive statistics. The study findings were shared through a project report and formal dissemination session. Currently, one original paper is under the review process in a peer-reviewed journal.