Dilek DEMİRBÜKEN: An Evaluation of burial records of Ankara city cemeteries. (Unpublished Master Thesis.Ankara, Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies, 2001)

Information on the level and trends of Turkish mortality is based exclusively on direct and indirect estimates from census and national demographic survey data. Furthermore, these sources cannot provide information on many of the correlates of mortality. There is also a complete lack of information on age, sex and cause of death. Accurate and detailed information about mortality will be increasingly needed by the health system and for making public health policy at local levels in Turkey.
While reviewing the existing sources of information on mortality stated in the death registration system, it was seen that cemetery records are used only for registration, not for statistics. For this reason, burial records are examined as an alternative possible source for the information of deaths in this thesis.
Burial is possible with a permit in cities. Medical doctors in hospitals and in health centres, municipal medical officers of the health divisions of the municipal authorities and medical doctors in forensic bureaus are authorized to give burial permits. However, no such documentation is required in rural areas. Authorized medical doctors in any death event in cities fill in a detachable three-piece death form, including information on age, sex, cause of death, usual residence, date of death, marital status, level of education, occupation and other background characteristics of the deceased. The first piece of this form is kept in the organization where the burial permit is issued, the second piece is sent to the Health Directorate of the province, to be passed on to the State Institute of Statistics in Ankara, while a third piece is given to the relatives of the deceased, later to be taken to the municipal authority so that it moves with the deceased to the cemetery as a burial permit and burial can take place. In Turkey, the vital registration statistics for deaths from the second section of the death form are published every year by the State Institute of Statistics. These are based on the permits for burial issued in only urban areas that is, in 'province and district centres'. But there is not enough published data or study based on burial records in cemeteries.
The aims of this study are to evaluate the reliability of this data source, to research the statistical usefulness of cemetery records, to get the burial forms of residents of Ankara City, to determine the information of the mortality of Ankara City from the burial records of the cemeteries of the city in 1997 and to learn most important characteristics of deaths: age, sex, usual residence, date of death, cause of death, place of death and place of burial, and to research the procedures in the issuance, processing and registration of burial permits in Ankara City. Death registration procedures, related authorities, all forms filled out in the registration of deaths will have been examined for Turkey also, not only for Ankara City. Because procedures are unique in all cities of Turkey.

In order to examine the burial records of the cemeteries of Ankara City and to obtain the information of the mortality of the city, data were collected on deaths occurring in 1997 and a systematic sample of 1 of 10 death records was taken at each of the three cemeteries of the city. Burial records cover residents and non-residents of the city. Burial records of residents of Ankara City were obtained by evaluating the address parts of the forms in order to determine the basic demographic characteristics of deaths of Ankara City in 1997.