A new app has been announced that’s designed to perform a verbal autopsy: offering a conclusive diagnosis based on the manner in which a subject has died.
Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, researchers from Australia’s University of Melbourne and the USA’s University of Washington developed the software over a decade. Their goal? To provide crucial information on the 35 million unregistered deaths that occur worldwide each year. The issue stems predominantly from poorer countries, where doctor’s resources and local customs dictate the process involved in post-death procedures (there have been cases where the time between a death and a doctor’s report being issued has been up to a decade).
Governments in such regions will benefit most, with the data helping to determine where medical funding should be devoted. “If you live in a country where no-one is dying from malaria, then why are you pouring money into malaria-prevention programs? And conversely, if people are dying from lung cancer, why aren’t you investing in tobacco control?” asks Professor Alan Lopez, the man affectionately known as ‘Dr. Death’ due to his work in public health data collection in a career spanning decades.
“Up-to-date, reliable information on what people are dying from and at what age, is really important for policies to prevent premature death. Our app provides a way to do this, quickly, simply, cheaply and effectively, in real time, with the power of technology.”
The app features a detailed survey, with which a volunteer interviews those close to the deceased in order to ascertain symptoms, the duration of illness etc. This information is then relayed to a server that can determine the cause of death accurately, while doctors in the region can continue to provide medical support that may save someone else’s life.
By 2017, the app will have been rolled out to 20 countries.