BMC Public Health 2005, 5:58 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/5/58 and expert algorithm for diagnosis of causes of death can provide information on priority health problems in resource poor communities of developing countries. The importance of having local information for planning appropriate health interventions at district level is demon- strated in the same area [29]. We encourage more researches to further develop this simplified VA question- naire and expert algorithm, and to do a validation study in order to enhance its applicability in larger scale health surveys. Competing interests The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests. Authors' contributions KL participated in the design of the study, field data col- lection, data analysis, and prepared the draft manuscript. YB participated in the design of the study, field data col- lection, and data analysis and revised the draft manu- script. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript. 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