A study was carried out on the basis of research data of the deaths due to all kinds of accidents and violence of 550 children of less than 15 years of age, resident in the municipality of S. Paulo, State of S. Paulo, Brazil, which occurred during 1985. The project sought to correlate the existing data of the files of the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) with those of SEADE Foundation (official statistics) and then compare them with the investigator opinion (this latter based on all the additional information available) with a view to: analysing the reliability of the official statistics concerning the main cause of death; and discovering the possible deficiency in the transcription of the IML information to the SEADE Foundation in relation to the same cause. The results are as follows: existing IML information stands quite dose to the interviewer's opinion (71.54%) when working at the level of the categories of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9), reaching 84.77% of agreement when grouping level is considered; in relation to the interviewer's opinion, official statistics proved to be more reliable when analysed at the grouping level than that at the 3rd digit (67.13% and 24.05%, respectively); comparison between IML and SEADE Foundation data shows only 40% of agreement concerning the ICD-9 categories, reaching 75% when grouping data are analysed. These figures corroborate the proposed hypothesis that the IML, though having files with highly-detailed information, does not transfer them to the SEADE Foundation, thus diminishing the reliability of the official statistics when the details of each cause of death are considered. Better liaison between the two institutions is suggested with a view to achieving statistics of better quality with regard to death from external causes.
Cause of death; Accidents; Violence; Vital registration
