World Health Summit | 45 million deaths go unrecorded globally every year, new campaign urges investment in vital statistics systems

Around half of all deaths worldwide annually, about 45 million, go unrecorded, leading to health policy decisions being made with incomplete information. To address this, a new campaign launched at the World Health Summit, Berlin, seeks to promote investment in Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems and emphasise the importance of using accurate data to enhance public health and save lives.

Data for Health, an initiative set up in 2015 and funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and The Gates Foundation, partners with low- and middle-income countries to improve public health data and use of data for policymaking. It focuses on four major areas: civil registration and vital statistics; data use for policymaking; Population-Based Cancer Registries; non-communicable disease risk