ArticleInjury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention2026
Verbal autopsy instruments for 'causes and circumstances' surrounding drowning deaths in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review.
Article in Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Estimates of global causes of death for children and adolescents aged 5-19 in 2000-24: secondary data analysis using bayesian multinomial logistic regression.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundUnderstanding the causes and circumstances surrounding drowning events is vital to inform context-specific interventions. Verbal autopsy (VA) instruments have been used to improve the identification of drowning deaths in low-income and middle-income countries. However, the challenges and opportunities of using VA to understand the causes and circumstances surrounding fatal drowning deaths are unknown.
objectiveTo explore the extent to which causes and circumstances surrounding fatal drowning data are captured by the studies that use VA instruments, what challenges are faced, and what opportunities lie in improving this instrument.
methodsA scoping review, including publications from January 2012 to September 2023, was conducted using 14 electronic databases, 3 academic search engines and 10 grey literature sources. Data were analysed using frequency counts. Five experts were engaged to corroborate the review findings.
results11 457 publications were identified, and 9 were included after eligibility screening. Only one study captured the causes and circumstances of fatal drowning using VA instruments. Challenges regarding the VA instruments were reporting and recall bias, misclassification of cause of death and missing records. Opportunities include: optimising the 'open narrative' section, creating a drowning-specific module for VA instruments and complementing the instrument with social autopsy tools and qualitative methods.
conclusionsFindings indicate a severe gap in evidence, with implications for global organisations which develop VA instruments, to update their VA instruments with questions that can report the circumstances of a drowning death. It is anticipated that this could accelerate the action on global drowning prevention for sustainable development.
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Registered trials
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