CAUTION concerning trends and combining years: The causes of death are classified according to the International Classification of Diseases. Effective with deaths occurring in 1999, a new version of the classification system used was implemented nationally. The International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) expanded disease categories, changed the cause of death titles and format of death codes, regrouped causes,created new tabulation lists, and changed rules for selecting the underlying cause of death. ICD-10 affects some cause of death trends because some deaths have been coded differently than they would have been under ICD-9. Therefore, some shifts between 1998 (and earlier) and 1999 (and later) in rankings of leading causes of death and in cause of death trends may be partly attributable to ICD-10.
Users of VICA should be aware of these changes when making comparisons
between numbers and rates of death in 1999 and later to those of earlier years and are
encouraged to refer to: "Comparability of Cause of Death Between ICD-9 and ICD-10:
Preliminary Estimates" at
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr49/nvsr49_02.pdf for further information.
Causes of death: If you would like to study a subdivision of one of the causes listed on VICA's Death front page, create a table with that cause as a row, column or selection variable, and then click on the name of that cause in your table. Causes which have subdivisions are displayed as clickable (in blue and underscored). For example, if a cause in your table is "Chronic lower respiratory diseases," you can click on that title to see asthma, emphysema, and other lower respiratory diseases. Click here for table of the causes.
Rates: You may choose crude or age-adjusted rates, and if you choose age-adjusted, you may select the standard to which the adjustment is made. Confidence intervals around the rates are also available, so that you can test the statistical significance of apparent differences between rates.
Data by race: The default is to provide counts for black, white, and total only. Numbers of deaths for other minority races may be obtained by clicking on "All Races" in a table by race. Rates by race are not available.