Mortality Data

• Data Source
• Mortality-Injury Summary
• Injury Death ICD Codes
• Publications
• Presentations

• Tabulated Data
• Public Use Data
• Data Tools
• Query Systems
• Related Links

Data Source

Mortality Data from the National Vital Statistics System

Mortality Data - Injury Summary

Mortality data include information on all deaths occurring within the United States. Deaths of U.S. citizens and deaths of members of the Armed Forces occurring outside the United States are not included.

ICD Codes for Injury Deaths (ICD-10: *U01-*U03, V01-Y36, Y85-Y87, Y89)

Conditions related to injury can be described in two ways: (1) external cause of injury and (2) the nature of the injury. External cause codes describe the mechanism or cause of the injury (e.g., motor vehicle crash) and the manner or intent of the injury (e.g., unintentional). The nature of injury codes describe the body region or site of the injury (e.g., hip) and the diagnosis (e.g., fracture).

Most mortality statistics are presented based on the underlying cause of death. The underlying cause of death is defined as "(a) the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death, or (b) the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury." In the case of an injury-related death, the underlying cause of death is always an external cause. It thus provides information about the circumstances that lead to death, which is generally considered to be the most useful single cause from a public health standpoint.

Standard Cause of Death List

ICD-10 Selected Causes of Death Lists

• Table A 358 Selected Causes of Death List (injuries are causes 295-358)
• Table B 113 Selected Causes of Death List (injuries are causes 96-113)
  (Used for the general analysis of mortality and for ranking leading causes of death. It is similar to the List of 72 Selected Causes of Death in ICD-9.)
• Table F List of Motor Vehicle Accident Deaths
  This is designed to maximize comparability with ICD-9 lists for trend comparisons. This is necessary because the ICD-10 categories for motor vehicle accidents differ substantially from those in ICD-9. In ICD-9 the focus of the motor vehicle accident section was on the nature of the accident, whereas in ICD-10 the focus is on the victim and the type of vehicle involved in the accident.

Cause-of-death ranking is a useful tool for illustrating the relative burden of cause-specific mortality. Procedures for ranking causes of death are described on page 2 under Data and Methods, Procedures for ranking causes of death in Deaths: Leading Causes for 2002.

Publications

QuickStats
Age-Adjusted Death Rates for Leading Causes of Injury Death by Year:  United States, 1979-2004

Deaths: Injuries, 2002, NVSR, Vol. 54, No. 10

This is the second of an annual summary of injury mortality data; it is released as a supplemental report to the year's final data.

Contact: Lois Fingerhut, Robert Anderson, and Arialdi Minino

Deaths: Injuries 2001, NVSR, Vol. 52, No. 21

Beginning with data year 2001, this is the first of an annual summary of injury mortality data; it is released as a supplemental report to the year's final data.

Contact: Lois Fingerhut and Robert Anderson

Deaths: Final Data for 2002, NVSR, Vol. 53, No.5

In 2002 unintentional injury was the 5th leading cause of death, intentional self-harm (suicide) was the 11th leading cause of death, and assault (homicide) was the 13th leading cause of death.

Tables with injury and poisoning deaths and rates

• Tables. 10 -17 presents the 113 selected causes.
• Table 18. Number of deaths, death rates, and age-adjusted death rates for injury deaths according to mechanism and intent of death: United States, 2002
• Table 19. Number of deaths, death rates, and age-adjusted death rates for injury by firearms, by race and sex: United States, 1999-2002
• Table 20. Number of deaths, death rates, and age-adjusted death rates for injury by firearms, by Hispanic origin, race for non-Hispanic population, and sex: United States, 1999-2002
• Table 27. Number of deaths, death rates, and age-adjusted death rates for ages 15 years and over, by injury at work, race, and sex: United States, 2002
• Table 28. Number of deaths, death rates, and age-adjusted death rates for injury at work, by race and sex: United States, 1993-2002
• Table 29. Number of deaths, death rates, and age-adjusted death rates for major causes of death for the United States, and each State, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Marianas, 2002
• Table 31. Number of infant deaths and infant mortality rates for 130 selected causes by race: United States, 2002

Deaths: Leading Causes for 2002, NVSR, Vol. 53, No.17

Deaths: Leading Causes for 2001, NVSR, Vol. 52, No.9

These reports present final 2001-2002 data on the 10 leading causes of death in the United States by age, race, sex, and Hispanic origin.

Mortality Publications available online

Presentations

Mortality Data Presentations

Tabulated Data

Detailed mortality tables include data on age, race, sex, cause-of-death, life expectancy, and infant mortality. Some of the tables present national-level data, others feature State-level data:

• Includes Cause of Death
• Leading Causes of Death
• Historical Data 1900-98

Public Use Data

Mortality Data, Multiple-Cause-of-Death - Multiple Cause-of-Death data are collected annually. The link provides access to both documentation and data for multiple cause of death files from 1968-2005

For questions about public-use data files contact:

Phone: 301-458-4666

Fax: 301-458-4034

Mortality Data Tools

ICD-10 Framework for Presenting Injury Mortality Data - External Cause

The ICD-10 External Cause Matrix emphasizes the mechanism or cause of the injury and places secondary emphasis on the manner or intent of the injury. The ICD-10 injury mortality framework was developed to be as consistent as possible with the recommended framework developed based on the ICD-9 external cause of injury codes.

ICD-10 Framework for Injury Mortality Diagnosis Matrix

The ICD-10 Injury Mortality Diagnosis (IMD) matrix is a framework designed to organize injury diagnosis mortality data into meaningful groupings by body region and nature of injury.

ICD-9 Framework for Presenting Injury Mortality Data - External Cause

The ICD-9 External Cause Matrix emphasizes the mechanism or cause of the injury and places secondary emphasis on the manner or intent of the injury.

2006 NCHS Urban-Rural Classification Scheme for Counties

The 2006 NCHS Urban-Rural Classification scheme data file classifies each of the 3,141 U.S. counties/county equivalent into an organization level (four metropolitan, 2 nonmemtropolitan).

Query Systems

Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS)

Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) is an interactive querying tool that provides customized reports of injury-related data (years 1981-most recent year available).

Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER)

CDC WONDER has both numerical and textual databases. Some of these databases contain read-only information on morbidity, mortality, hospitalizations, surveillance of notifiable diseases, and CDC reports and guidelines. The Compressed Mortality File includes mortality data for years 1979-most recent year available.

Related Links

Death Certification

• Medical Examiners' and Coroners' Handbook on Death Registration and Fetal Death Reporting
• Instructions for Completing the Cause-of-Death Section of the Death Certificate for Injury and Poisoning
• Injury and Poisoning Tutorial From the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME)
• U.S. Standard Death Certificate (2003 revision)
• To request copy of State death certificate

Classification of Diseases

• International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9)
• International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10)
• Classification of Death and Injury Resulting from Terrorism

Other

• World Health Organization Injury and Violence
• State Health Departments
• National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS)
• Statistics Canada (includes links to International Statistical Offices)
• Human Mortality Database
• National Bureau of Economic Research

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Contact Injury

National Center for Health Statistics
3311 Toledo Road
Hyattsville, MD 20782
Phone:
1-800-232-4636
cdcinfo@cdc.gov

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30333, U.S.A
Tel: (404) 639-3311 / Public Inquiries: (404) 639-3534 / (800) 311-3435