Measuring Ethnic Mortality in Colombia: The Under-registration Gap

BackgroundUnder-registration of vital statistics is common in low- and middle-income countries, espe-cially among under-privileged groups. We examine the level of completeness of death countsin the Colombian vital registration records relative to those in the Census 2018. Our aim is toestimate the bias caused by under-registration of deaths, and how this bias varies across ageand ethnicity.MethodsWe use data from the 2018 National Population Census and 2017 Vital Registration Systemfrom Colombia. Under-registered deaths by ethnic groups were estimated using two methods.First, we compared the number of deaths in the census with those in the mortality records.Second, we fitted a logistic regression model to estimate the relationship between mortal-ity under-registration and ethnicity, using a census variable indicating whether a death in thehousehold was registered or not.ResultsA comparison of census and vital registration data indicates that the majority of deaths toboth Indigenous and Afro-descendent households were not registered. Indigenous under-registration was considerably higher, with 77.8% of deaths reported in the census not capturedin the vital registration system. The probability of under-registration remains high among theIndigenous and Afro-descendent population, even after adjusting for household characteristics.ConclusionsVital registration data in Colombia severely underestimate the deaths to Indigenous and Afro-descendants, reinforced by a clear geospatial patterning which correlates with the distributionof ethnic populations.ContributionThis study is the first to quantify the magnitude of under-registration of deaths among ethnicgroups in Colombia using census micro-data and vital registration data.