Maximizing Synergies between Health Observatories and CRVS: Guidance for INDEPTH HDSS Sites and CRVS Stakeholders

It is ironic that two major data intensive enterprises—national Civil Registration & Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems and population & health observatories such as Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) or Sample Vital Registration with Verbal Autopsy (SAVVY) systems monitor the same vital events (births, deaths, and causes of death) among the same populations in the same countries yet rarely collaborate, remain largely unknown to each other, and analyse and utilise their data in different ways and for different purposes. As a consequence, birth and death surveillance expertise and data frequently remain locked in separate national silos. More worrisome, key analytical findings from the population and health observatories are not seen as an integral part of the fabric of either the national health information systems or the CRVS systems. This is not an either/or issue. Low and some middle-income countries need both an increasingly strong CRVS system and population and health observatories that are collaborating and working synergistically. This document makes the case for this and describes ways in which such collaboration can work to strengthen CRVS.