9 July 2026
11:00 a.m. (Eastern Time)
Language: Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation into English, Portuguese, and French.
In many countries and territories, a significant proportion of deaths occur outside health facilities and without medical certification of the cause of death. This limits the availability of reliable information needed to guide public health policies, epidemiological surveillance, and health service planning.
In this masterclass, Daniel Cobos Muñoz, an international expert in verbal autopsy and mortality information systems, will present the fundamentals of Verbal Autopsy as a tool for estimating causes of death where no medical certification is available, and its contribution to strengthening Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems.
The session will review the basic concepts, available instruments, coding approaches—including automated coding—and the main logistical and ethical considerations for implementation. It will also highlight how verbal autopsy contributes to improving the coverage, quality, and use of mortality statistics for public health surveillance and evidence-informed decision-making.
This event is part of the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics thematic track, which aims to promote the exchange of good practices and relevant knowledge on the digital transformation of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems across the Region.
General objective
Strengthen technical and institutional capacities to use ICD-11 as the core semantic standard within Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems and Information Systems for Health (IS4H), improving the quality and integration of morbidity and mortality data while enabling the interoperability required for digital transformation in health and evidence-informed decision-making.
Specific objective of the session: Strengthen participants' capacities to use Verbal Autopsy in settings where no medical certification of the cause of death is available, integrating its results into Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems and public health surveillance.
Speaker
Daniel Cobos Muñoz
Physician and public health researcher specializing in mortality information systems, verbal autopsy, and cause-of-death analysis. He is currently Group Leader at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), where he leads initiatives to strengthen Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems, mortality surveillance, and the use of data for health decision-making. He also serves as Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Verbal Autopsy at Swiss TPH and Chair of the WHO Reference Group on Health Statistics.
Moderator: Chiaki Miki, International Consultant, Pan American Health Organization.
Participation
- DATE: Thursday, 9 July 2026
- TIME: 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)
- PLATFORM: Zoom
- LANGUAGE: Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation into English, Portuguese, and French.