When Every Death Counts: The Hidden Story in Malaysia’s Mortality Data
How accurate are a country’s death statistics, and what do they really say about access to healthcare?
That’s exactly what Team Math Mavericks from the University of Selangor, Malaysia, decided to explore in their Curiosity Cup project.
Their effort didn’t go unnoticed, and out of 112 teams worldwide, they proudly made it into the Top 15!
Using SAS OnDemand for Academics, they dug into data from two decades (2000 – 2023) collected by Malaysia’s Department of Statistics.
They conducted descriptive analyses, trend visualizations, normality tests, and t-tests to uncover how medically certified and non-certified deaths differ in terms of accuracy and reporting quality.
And here’s what they found:
- Medically certified deaths change more over time, while non-certified ones stay steady.
- 2021 saw the highest number of total deaths (150,000+), reflecting the pandemic’s impact.
- There’s a clear, statistically significant difference between certified and non-certified data.
By this, they claimed that good analytics can make a real impact, and to improve public health planning, Malaysia needs to boost death certification accuracy, expand healthcare access, and modernize digital reporting systems.
Great job, Math Mavericks! Congratulations to Siti Nur Afiqah Talha, Nurul Najah Md Nor, Faiq Wazien Sidek, and the Faculty Advisor, Nasrudin Md Rahim.
Are you interested to learn more and seeing all the graphs that were included?
See the PDF attached here (under the main headline of the article).
