ABSTRACT
Objective@#To understand the underreporting rate of death among residents in Zhejiang Province from 2016 to 2018, so as to provide a basis for improvement of death surveillance measures. @*Methods@#Multi-stage random cluster sampling was used to select residents in 30 public health surveillance areas of Zhejiang Province and all the residents were investigated the general information and death conditions that occurred during the period 2016-2018 by door to door visit. The underreporting rate of death was calculated and descriptive methods were used to analyze the causes of underreporting deaths.@*Results@#A total of 358 992 residents were investigated in 30 public health surveillance areas of Zhejiang Province. There were 63 underreporting deaths among 5 896 deaths, with an underreporting rate of 1.07%. The underreporting rate in men was 1.30%, which was higher than 0.75% in women ( P<0.05 ). The underreporting rate of residents aged 20 to <40 years was 6.74%, the highest among all the age groups ( P<0.05 ). The underreporting rate was 4.46% on the way to the hospital, the highest among all the places of death ( P<0.05 ). The underreporting rate in Wuxing District of Huzhou was 5.80%, the highest among all the surveillance areas. There were 25 cases of "late report or untimely review", accounting for 39.68%; 38 cases of "not report", accounting for 60.32%, of which 14 cases were caused by doctors forgetting to report, accounting for 22.22%. @*Conclusion@#The underreporting rate of death in Zhejiang Province from 2016 to 2018 is generally low. In response to underreporting deaths, multi-departmental collaboration should be promoted to effectively strengthen the reporting and management of routine death surveillance.