Background: Calculation of burden of diseases and risk factors is crucial to set priorities in the health care systems. Nevertheless, the
reliable measurement of mortality rates is the main barrier to reach this goal. Unfortunately, in many developing countries the vital registration
system (VRS) is either defective or does not exist at all. Consequently, alternative methods have been developed to measure mortality.
This study is a subcomponent of NASBOD project, which is currently conducting in Iran. In this study, we aim to calculate incompleteness
of the Death Registration System (DRS) and then to estimate levels and trends of child and adult mortality using reliable methods.
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age period methods. Then, we combine these two methods using LOESS regression. However, these estimates are not plausible
for some provinces. We use additional information of covariates such as wealth index and years of schooling to make predictions for these
provinces using spatio-temporal model. We generate yearly estimates of mortality using Gaussian process regression that covers both
sampling and non-sampling errors within uncertainty intervals. By comparing the resulted estimates with mortality rates from DRS, we
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and a hybrid of two mentioned methods are used. Afterwards, we combine incompleteness of three methods using GPR, and apply it to
correct and adjust the number of deaths.
Conclusion: In this study, we develop a conceptual framework to overcome the existing challenges for accurate measuring of mortality
rates. The resulting estimates can be used to inform policy-makers about past, current and future mortality rates as a major indicator of
health status of a population.
Keywords: Adult mortality, child mortality, incomplet