Across Asia and Africa it is often not a doctor but a computer that figures out a cause of death.
A network of health and population researchers has been collecting death statistics across 13 countries in Asia and Africa for more than 20 years, and its findings have now been made public.
The Indepth data set has recorded 110000 deaths and provides insight into areas where a shortage of health workers and no legal requirements for certificates mean deaths often don't make it onto government registries.
Computers might declare a cause of death, but it is researchers who visit relatives of the dead and compile a "verbal autopsy" - a detailed interview which is then crunched into the computer.
The researchers hope the data set will assist policy-makers in making healthcare interventions.
The data set does reveal that in South Africa and east Africa HIV/Aids deaths are declining, but non-communicable diseases like cancer and diabetes are increasing because of longer life spans.
"The power of being able to look at all these numbers is that it lifts the lid on the unknowns, an essential starting point in the battle to address global inequities," said Professor Kathleen Kahn, senior scientist at the Medical Research Council/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit.
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