Disease relevance of Death Certificates

• A retrospective cohort study of women treated for hyperthyroidism at the Mayo Clinic between 1946 and 1964 was conducted to determine if 1,005 women treated with iodine-131 (131I) were at increased risk of breast cancer compared with 2,141 women traced, and a response (death certificate or questionnaire) was received for 99% of the traced women [1].
• There was acceptable agreement between the committee, death certificates and ICD-codes only for deaths due to neoplasma, and between the committee and death certificates for deaths due to acute myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular events and accidents [2].
• METHODS: During 1987 through 1992 in Izumo City, Japan, we estimated the incidence rate of subarachnoid hemorrhage by including dead-on-arrival patients and by further adding the results obtained after reviewing all death certificates registered in this city in the corresponding period [3].
• Multiple sclerosis was noted on the death certificate as the underlying cause of death in 55.4%; cardiac or vascular diseases in 17.6%; cancers in 8.6%; respiratory or infectious diseases in 5.1%; other natural causes in 9.5%; accident or suicide in 3.8% [4].
• OBJECTIVE: To determine the incidence of proteinuria and elevated serum creatinine in HIV-positive and HIV-negative women and to determine whether these abnormalities are predictors of mortality or associated with causes of death listed on the death certificate in HIV-positive women [5].

Psychiatry related information on Death Certificates

• PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of cigarette use and alcohol consumption as risk factors for NPC in the United States. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study using data from the National Mortality Followback Survey based on information from death certificates [6].
• STUDY OBJECTIVE--The aims were (1) to identify from death certificates regions with an increased incidence of dementia mortality; and (2) to determine whether a previously observed excess of patients with Alzheimer disease originating from a small area could be confirmed in a survey of death certificates [7].
• The study subjects were described in terms of sex; age group; the presence or absence of a suicide note; the anatomical cause of death (Part I of the death certificate); and the presence of mental illness, severe physical illness, or alcohol abuse (Part II of the death certificate) as contributive to the death [8].

High impact information on Death Certificates

• MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Minor ST-T abnormalities identified from annual resting ECGs and mortality ascertained from death certificates [9].
• DESIGN--Retrospective analyses of death certificate data on diarrhea of all causes compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga [10].
• We reviewed data from 56,133 death certificates that contained codes implicating carbon monoxide as a contributing cause of death [11].
• Lung cancer in Louisiana: death certificate analysis [12].
• We examined death certificates, necropsy reports, and physician records of children who had died and contacted families if sudden unexpected death in epilepsy could have occurred [13].

Chemical compound and disease context of Death Certificates

• Inappropriate inclusion of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus on death certificates [14].

Biological context of Death Certificates

• To conduct surveillance of occupationally related health events, the New Hampshire Division of Public Health Services analyzes death certificates and workers' compensation claims [15].
• Neonatal, postneonatal, and risk-factor-specific mortality rates were computed from linked birth and infant death records of the 1974-75 Harris County, Texas, cohort of 68,584 for Spanish surname White, non-Spanish surname White, and Black single live births [16].
• In 1237 female dial workers first employed before 1930, with or without a radium body-burden measurement, no deaths due to thyroid cancer (underlying cause of death on death certificates) were observed during 1950-76, when 0.4 deaths were expected [17].

Associations of Death Certificates with chemical compounds

• A review of death certificates in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts for 1959-77 yielded a total of 1722 deaths among former workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard where nuclear submarines are repaired and refuelled [18].
• Will the Scottish Cancer Target for the year 2000 be met? The use of cancer registration and death records to predict future cancer incidence and mortality in Scotland [19].
• SETTING: Former Oxford NHS Region, England. PATIENTS: Data from death certificates of all who died in the population covered [20].
• Each case was typed and graded on a representative haematoxylin and eosin section, while the age at diagnosis, stage and survival (within a minimum five year follow-up) was obtained from examination of hospital case notes and death certificates [21].
• Mortality and causes of death from death certificates were analyzed among workers exposed to phosgene while working at a uranium-processing plant in Tennessee in 1943-45 [22].

Gene context of Death Certificates

• We designed a mortality study based on death certificates from January 1, 1982 through December 31, 1992 in a cohort of G6PD-deficient men [23].
• Trends in the number of deaths where MRSA was mentioned on the death certificate were compared with national reporting of microbiologically-confirmed bacteraemia to the Health Protection Agency Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) [24].
• COPD is obviously underrated on death certificates as the cause of death among COPD patients [25].
• Cases were individuals who had died, with a diagnosis of epilepsy registered on the death certificate, and who after review of medical and necropsy records were found to meet our SUDEP criteria [26].
• RESULTS: The listing of hemochromatosis on death certificates increased 60% from 1979 to 1992 [27].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of Death Certificates

• Increased mortality among persons with rheumatoid arthritis, but where RA does not appear on death certificate. Eleven-year follow-up of an epidemiological study [28].
• METHODS: White, Black, and Hispanic women (n = 126,220) receiving no prenatal care and delivering a live, singleton infant were identified from linked birth and death certificates for years 1995 through 1997 [29].

References