Cause of death statistics are important epidemiological data and are the main source of information for the formulation of health policy and the determination of health resource allocation and disease intervention focuses . Approximately 50 years of historical data are available in the death cause registration report in China . At present, the four main case management systems for the national death cause registration report are as follows: Death Cause Registration System of the Ministry of Health , National Disease Surveillance Points System, the National Maternal and Child Health Monitoring System (NMCHMS)  and the National Death Cause Registering and Reporting System (i.e., the system described herein). Most of the documentation on maternal mortality and deaths in children under 5 years of age is sourced from the National Maternal and Child Health Monitoring System (as in this study).