Vital Statistics Compressed Mortality File 1968-1988

The 1968-1988 Compressed Mortality Data from the National Vital Statistics System of the National Center for Health Statistics consists of a mortality data file and a population data file. Each record in the mortality file has eight fields. Seven describe possible categories (age, race, gender, year, state, county of residence, and underlying cause of death) within which a decedent can fall and the remaining field is a count of the number of decedents matching on all seven categories. There are records for every death to a U.S. citizen for all years except 1972. The 1972 data is based on a 50% sample and is weighted by a factor of 2. The population file contains Census national, state and county population estimates. The age, race, and sex detail of the population file matches the mortality file.

Counts and rates of death by age, race, gender, year, state, and county of residence, and underlying cause of death (4-digit ICD code or group of codes) for more recent years can be produced by CDC Wonder. (Choose "Get Information" --> "Mortality")

Use of this data signifies agreement with NCHS data use rules. Works referring to the datasets or codebooks should contain a citation to NCHS. Published material derived from this data should include a citation such as this at the bottom of the table: "Source: National Center for Health Statistics (span of years used)"