Should Researchers Have More Access To Birth And Death Data?

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Main Category: Public Health
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Article Date: 06 Mar 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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Monitoring births, deaths, causes of death, and migration in a population over time is an essential component to the study of public health. This process, known as demographic surveillance, yields data that may not be readily available to all researchers worldwide. Should the data from the various demographic surveillance systems be made more widely available? This was the subject of a discussion released on February 25, 2008 in PLoS Medicine, which explored the various obstacles to this end and how they might overcome.

There is presently an international network of demographic surveillance systems (DSS) which operates in nineteen countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The International Network for the Continuous Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health, abbreviated INDEPTH. In the debate, Daniel Chandramohan (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and colleagues claim that DSS data in the INDEPTH database should be available to all researchers globally, rather than just to those within the INDEPTH network who plan to study and publish the data. In return, Basia Zaba (also at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and colleagues make the argument that the major obstacles DSS sites face in sharing data do not involve proprietary concerns such as analysis and publication, but rather are technical, managerial, and financial.

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PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of important global health issues. For more information, visit http://www.plosmedicine.org.

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Should Data from Demographic Surveillance Systems Be Made More Widely Available to Researchers
Daniel Chandramohan, Kenji Shibuya, Philip Setel, Sandy Cairncross, Alan D. Lopez, Christopher J. L. Murray, Basia Żaba, Robert W. Snow, Fred Binka
PLoS Med 5(2): e57
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Written by Anna Sophia McKenney
Copyright: Medical News Today
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