Incomplete registration of the death counts and inaccurate censuses are common problems in
most developing countries (UNITED NATIONS, 1983, 2002). Even, when the census
coverage is good, there may be errors related to the age reporting (BENNETT, N. G.;
HORIUCHI, S, 1984; HILL, K., 1987; 2001, HILL, K.; You, D.; CHOI, Y, 2009). According
to Shryock and Siegel (1980), there are four types of deficiencies in census data: (1) errors in
single years of age, (2) errors in grouped data, (3) reporting of extreme old age, and (4)
failure to report the age. In the case of developing countries accuracy of the definition of
death counts and accuracy of allocation of deaths by place and time, and completeness of
registration are the most severe problems (SIEGEL; SHRYOCK, 1980).
The Centraal Bureau Voor Burger Zaken (CBB) of the Ministery of Internal Affairs of
Suriname is responsible for the yearly registration of the vital statistics birth, death, migration
and other demographic events. In the country there exist 47 CBB offices whereby 87.23% of
them conduct registration of birth and death. In the Census of 2004 and 2012, there were no
questions related to the death in the last 12 months. Thus, the study of mortality in Suriname
is possible using the death count data of CBB and the Census data of the General Bureau of
Statistics (GBS).
Suriname is divided into ten districts and three central regions: 1) urban coastal area; 2) rural
coastal area and 3) rural interior area. In this paper, we focus on the three main regions
because it avoids the problem of dealing with small scale population (541638 in Census
2012). It is important to observe that in minuscule scale communities the occurrence of death
by age may be zero or rare in some years, and it is necessary to find methodological ways to
deal with this limitation.
However, even working with three main regions still limits the analysis. The total population
in the urban coastal area was 359146 in Census 2012. For Census 2012, the rural coastal area
and the rural interior area had a total population of 111224 and 71268, respectively.
Furthermore, internal and international migration also makes that this study is relevant
because migration evenso affects the population balance equation. Moreover, there are few
studies about adult mortality in Suriname, the second smallest country regarding the
population in South America.
2
The objective of this article is to evaluate the data quality of the death counts and population
data and to estimate adult mortality in Suriname and its central regions by sex. To reduce
problems and to investigate issues when dealing with migration we use age segments
including and excluding migration. This exercise is performed to observe the difference in
adult mortality estimates in cases when the proportion of high migration (age groups 15-34 or
15-30) is more prevalent or not. The evaluation of the data quality is also done by analyzing
the completeness of death register and demographic measures for data errors. The estimation
of adult mortality is conducted using the summary index of adult mortality, probability of
dying between 15 and 60 years of age (
45 q15
).