Ascertaining cause of mortality among middle-aged and older persons using computer-coded and expert review verbal autopsies in the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.

Both approaches identify the same leading causes of death at the aggregate level, but consistency is relatively low at the individual level. InterVA works well when causes of death are characterized by distinctive signs and symptoms. Grouping the various causes of death with shared etiology or common risk factors may help improve the quality of the ascertainment of causes of death. Open-ended narratives are helpful because they provide information about the circumstances surrounding the death that are not available in the structured verbal autopsy interviews.