Bmc Med
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Multicenter Study
Performance of InSilicoVA for assigning causes of death to verbal autopsies: multisite validation study using clinical diagnostic gold standards.
Recently, a new algorithm for automatic computer certification of verbal autopsy data named InSilicoVA was published. The authors presented their algorithm as a statistical method and assessed its performance using a single set of model predictors and one age group. ⋯ The default format and training data provided by the software lead to results that are at best suboptimal, with poor cause-of-death predictive performance. This method is likely to generate erroneous cause of death predictions and, even if properly configured, is not as accurate as alternative automated diagnostic methods.