Zambia's mobile death notification lifted registration completeness from 11.9% to 17.4%

An electronic version of Zambia's Form 13 death notification, used in burial offices across Lusaka, Central, Copperbelt and Southern provinces, captured 115,573 deaths in six months and raised estimated completeness from 11.9% to 17.4% while cutting mean reporting delay from six days to three.

Zambia's official death notification form was digitised in KoboToolbox and used in burial offices in four high-mortality provinces, with a dashboard for real-time monitoring. Over six months the platform recorded 115,573 deaths occurring between January 2021 and June 2025. Estimated completeness was 17.4% (95% CI 17.3 to 17.5) against 11.9% for the paper system, and mean reporting delay fell from six days to three.

What you could now answer: Quantifies how far a mobile notification platform moves completeness and delay in a civil registration system, with completeness still below one in five after the change.

Source: Global health action
Coverage: Zambia: Lusaka, Central, Copperbelt and Southern provinces; deaths occurring January 2021 to June 2025, facility and community deaths
Granularity: Individual death notification records (official Form 13), with real-time dashboard aggregation
Latency: Mean 3 days from death to report, down from 6 days under the paper system
Access: not stated
Change: New format
Driver: Revisions and new sources

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