Why not simply count death certificates issued?
Summary: The death certificate record in Iraq is incomplete and not centrally collated, and such central data as exists are not readily available. Counting all death certificates is not logistically feasible, and even if it were it would produce a biased estimate of the number of deaths. Counting death certificates to estimate mortality would be a valid approach if • a) all deaths were recorded by a death certificate, • b) no certificates were issued for deaths that did not occur, and • c) all death certifictes could be obtained. These conditions do not necessarily obtain in all countries even in peacetime, but they are particularly unlikely to hold in unstable countries like Iraq with weak administrative capacity and poor security. For this reason, estimates of mortality in conflict situations typically rely on surveying people directly rather than attempting to use likely incomplete official records. As discussed in this FAQ, the methodology used by the MIT/Bloomberg study is the sta
