April 27, 2021 | News | Congratulations

Inna Danilova Obtained Her Second Doctorate

© MPIDR

On April 26, 2021 Inna Danilova from the Laboratory of Demographic Data successfully defended her doctoral thesis on "Spatial and temporal consistency of cause-specific mortality data" at the University of Rostock.

Her cumulative dissertation extends the traditional approach to studying this question by indirectly evaluating the validity of cause-of-death data through an examination of the consistency of the data collected by a given country. Two dimensions of cause-of-death data consistency are addressed in the thesis:

1. spatial consistency, or the consistency of the data across the country’s subnational entities
2. temporal consistency, or the consistency of cause-of-death data over time

Cause-of-death data are considered as a powerful instrument for monitoring long- and short-term changes in population health, including the determinants of these changes. Reliable information on causes of death is also essential for planning health care programs and policy interventions.

One of the most important preconditions for the usage of the cause-specific evidence is reliability of diagnoses and consistency and comparability of the data in time and across space between and within countries.

This is why Danilova’s dissertation is practically relevant for demographic, public health, epidemiological, and also inter-disciplinary research. The dissertation provides a powerful methodological insight and adequate solutions for assessment of spatial and temporal consistency of cause-specific data.

These innovative approaches allow to avoid providing misleading or biased evidence for policies. The methodological and analytical outcomes also informs national and international bodies responsible for coding of causes of death about potential issues and consequences related to the changes in international and national coding practices such as implementing the ICD revisions.

The dissertation was supervised by Vladimir Shkolnikov (MPIDR) and Roland Rau (University of Rostock, MPIDR). This is Danilova’s second dissertation but the first in demography.  She obtained her first PhD in Sociology in December 2018.