Verbal Autopsy through the use of Mobile Phones: What is the acceptability and
feasibility of giving cause of death information generated by Mobile InterVA to families
of the deceased in rural Nepal?
The births and deaths of two-thirds of the world’s population go unrecorded. Public health
planning is hampered by this knowledge deficit. This project examines the feasibility and
ethical acceptability of Mobile InterVA (MIVA), a new low-cost mobile system for recording
probable cause of death in resource-poor settings.
MIVA provides the ability to give immediate feedback about probable cause of death to
family members of the deceased. The prospect of giving this information to grieving family
members raises significant ethical questions. This issue is particularly pressing, as the World
Health Organization and others have signaled a desire to extend VA methods to routine
health surveillance, and MIVA may provide that opportunity.
The Institute of Global Health, and the Centre for Philosophy Justice and Health at University
College London have partnered with a Nepali research organization, MIRA, to conduct
research to consider the issues around using MIVA. We will complete a qualitative study, in
rural Nepal, interviewing individuals who have experienced a death in their family in the last
two to five years. We will ask them to consider different scenarios, to explore a range of
positive and negative issues that may arise in providing cause of death information. We will
also conduct discussions with national and international stakeholders involved in considering
international ethical issues in health and health research. This research will inform
international discussions around promoting of MIVA as a data capture and analysis tool and is
funded through UCL Grand Challenges. The research will be completed by July 2014.
For further information please contact:
Dr Joanna Morrison joanna.morrison@ucl.ac.uk; Dr James Wilson james.wilson@ucl.ac.uk at
University College London; and Dr Dharma Manandhar at MIRA, Nepal dsm@mira.org.np;
Bharat Budhathoki at MIRA Hetauda bbmagar3@gmail.com Tel: +977 (0)57 520972