The Center for Health Statistics (CHS) collects death certificate data in Oregon. By law, death certificates are required to be filed within 48 hours of a death. Data are maintained on all deaths occurring in the state of Oregon as well as Oregon residents who died out of state beginning in 1979. Information is collected on decedent’s demographic characteristics such as sex, age, race/Hispanic ethnicity, education, marital status, resident state, county and city, county of occurrence, place of death, occupation and industry, cause of death (with associated injury data, when present), and date of death. Additional data is collected on tobacco use, autopsy and, beginning in 2006, maternal mortality.
The Center for Health Statistics is responsible for maintaining approximately 6 million vital records. Birth and death records have been filed with the state since 1903. Marriage records have been filed since 1906, divorce records since 1925, and fetal death records since 1919. Vital records and the adult and youth risk behavior surveys are the primary sources of data used to measure and track the health status of Oregonians. These data are also used throughout the state and nation for program planning and policy development and are the primary data sources used for measuring many Oregon Benchmarks, Department of Human Services Outcomes and Performance Measures, and Healthy People 2010 Objectives.
Mortality data are published every year in the Oregon Vital Statistics Annual Report. The first report was published in 1905 and contains basic data. Over time the reports became more comprehensive and are available from the State Library. Currently data are available from 1989 to the present on a client server for public health surveillance by HIPPA-trained state employees. Data from earlier years (1958+) are stored on mainframe tapes/cartridges. Beginning in 1999, and for the first time in twenty years, a new revision of the International Classification of Disease (ICD) became the standard cause of death manual. This tenth revision (ICD-10) incorporates multiple changes, including changing from numeric to alphanumeric codes, considerably greater detail for some causes (and less detail for others); shifts of inclusion in terms and titles from one category, section, or chapter to another; regrouping of diseases; new titles in sections; and modifications in coding rules used to determine the underlying cause of death. As a result, serious breaks occur in the comparability for a number of causes of death. Measures of this discontinuity are essential to the interpretation of mortality trends. Comparability ratios must be applied when presenting/analyzing data using both ICD-9 and ICD-10-based data as cause of death data for 1999 and latter years are not directly comparable data from earlier years. Beginning in 2006, the death system was re-engineered to collect data through a web-based application. At the same time, the format and type of data collected changed to match the most recent standard set by the CDC in 2003. The most notable change was in the collection of education, Hispanic, and race categories. However, much of the data available in the systems noted above are available in tables of data on the CHS website at http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/chs/index.shtml.
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Before the release of any data, all research proposals requesting the use of confidential death records data must be reviewed by Oregon Health Services for compliance with the following criteria: 1) Data used for statistical reporting and analysis only 2) Care was used in reporting small numbers of events that may inadvertently lead to the identification of individuals. Users should abide by the small numbers guidelines that are attached. 3) No use made of the identity of any person, if identity is discovered inadvertently, the Health Statistics Coordinator must be contacted immediately if accident release occurred. 4) Do not link the datasets with individually identifiable data from any other source. 5) Do not release data from the death certificate to any third party without prior written approval of the Department of Human Services, State Registrar. 6) Take reasonable precautions to protect data from third party exposure. (e.g., use a password protected screensaver when possible, exit data viewing software before you leave your work station, etc.) SUMMARY OF RELATED LAWS MORBIDITY & MORTALITY STUDIES - ORS 432.060 “All records of interviews, reports, studies and statement procured by or furnished to the Department of Human Services, any federal health agency or any non-profit health agency that is exempt from taxation under the laws of this state or in connection with special morbidity and mortality studies, are confidential in so far as the identity of an individual patient is concerned. Such records may be used solely for the purpose of the studies.” VITAL RECORDS - ORS 432.121 (1-12) All vital records, reports and documents and the data from those documents are confidential and shall not be opened to or for public inspection except in certain circumstances which are specified in the law and rules of the Department; i.e., birth records are available upon written application to only certain persons; marriage and divorce records have restricted access; death records are available to persons having a direct and proper interest. PROCEDURES FOR USING SMALL NUMBERS BIRTH and DEATH DATA Because researchers will have access to potentially identifiable individual record information that is confidential, protected by law and DHS Center for Health Statistics rules and policies, data users must agree to assess the impact on privacy and confidentiality before releasing aggregated data. Identifiable information includes but is not limited to demographic identifier information, which will identify or may reasonably lead to the identification of one or more specific individuals. Therefore, data users should abide by the same rules of confidentiality in reporting non-identified aggregates at the geographic level, where disclosure of detailed demographic information and medical information would make it possible to identify the person in local communities. Users should abide by the “10 and 50" rule mentioned in Policy 01-01-27 issued on January 1, 1999 by Oregon Department of Human Services, Health Division. In general, release of a health statistic should only occur if the denominator of the health statistic is more than fifty when the denominator is a population (a group of people with certain age, race, and sex characteristics who live in a particular place) or more than ten when the denominator is a cohort (a group of people whose membership is defined by the occurrence of some event). The following guidelines for releasing birth or death data have been authorized by Center for Health Statistics. Confidentiality Guideline 1: When releasing the total number of births or deaths at the county and sub-county level for any time period, the Ten and Fifty recommendations do not need to be followed. Sub-county level data are by city, zip-code, or census tract. Confidentiality Guideline 2: When releasing birth or death data for demographic data items at the county or sub-county level for any time period, the Ten and Fifty recommendations do not need to be followed. Sub-county level data are by city, zip-code, or census tract. Confidentiality Guideline 3: When releasing birth or death data for non-demographic data items at the county or sub-county level aggregated over three or more years, the Ten and Fifty recommendations do not have to be followed. Sub-county level data are by city, zip-code, or census tract. Confidentiality Guideline 4: When releasing birth or death data for non-demographic data items at the county and sub-county level for a single year or for a two-year aggregation, the Ten and Fifty recommendations should be followed. In cases where population denominator data are not available at the sub-county level, the non-demographic data item should not be released for a single year or for a two-year aggregation. Sub-county level data are by city, zip code, or census tract. Reliability: The policy recommendation for publishing rates or percentages based on small numbers that applies to vital statistics data is: Rates and percentages from complete count data and registry data may be published without program review when there are five (5) or more events in the numerator. Unless precluded by confidentiality polices or other program-specific concerns, the small numbers themselves may be published, especially when they represent a sentinel event. The Center for Health Statistics adopted the following data reliability guideline for releasing birth or death, pregnancy data to the general public, persons who have not signed a CHS confidentiality agreement, or persons who are not local health department employees. The reliability guideline should be implemented after the data have been reviewed for confidentiality following CG1 through CG4. This guideline applies to releasing data in all formats (i.e.: hard copy, electronic). Reliability Guideline 1: When releasing rates or percentages calculated from birth or death data, the rate or percentage can be released if the number of events is less than five. It is recommended that the number of events from which the rate or percentage was calculated be released with the rate or percentage along with the following footnote “Rates or percentages calculated with less than five events may be unreliable”.
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For deaths, the funeral director or person who first assumes responsibility for the body files the death or fetal death certificate. A physician completes the medical portion of these death certificates, except in cases of found bodies and nonnatural deaths, which are certified by medical examiners. Hospital medical records personnel help to ensure that all certificates are complete and accurate. These service providers then file the completed certificates with the county registrars in the county where the event occurred. County registrars play an important role by further assuring the completeness and accuracy of birth, death, and fetal death registration. They check the certificates against other sources of information to make certain no events are missed. County registrars also follow up on any incomplete items before sending the certificates to the state registrar at the Center for Health Statistics. At the state level, the staff of the Center for Health Statistics perform additional checks for completeness and accuracy. A field representative makes contact with providers and county registrars. Clerical staff send correspondence seeking additional information on such matters as causes of death, birth weight, and tobacco use. Microfilm store certificates so that certified copies can be made. Coders and data entry personnel turn the collected information into computerized data, which are then retrieved by programmers, analyzed by researchers, and made available for demographic and public health needs. The data does not overlook events relating to Oregon residents that occurred in another state. The Centers for Health Statistics in each U.S. state and Canadian province have agreed to forward copies of birth, death, and fetal death certificates to the state where the person usually resided. A cooperative agreement also exists for reports on induced termination of pregnancy; however, some states collect no resident information on these reports and, therefore, cannot participate in the exchange. Among all these participants, it is clear there is no single recorder. The many hundreds of people throughout Oregon who record the major life events of our citizens have all played important roles in preparing this report. It could not have been achieved without them.
This database contains all information collected from death certificates in Oregon. See entity and attribute detailed citation for a sample of the information entered into a death certificate.
http://www.dhs.state.or.us/dhs/ph/chs/data/arpt/04v2/appendd/dthcrt.pdf
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In preparation of this data, every effort has been made to offer the most current, correct, complete and clearly expressed information possible. However, some errors in the data may exist. In particular, but without limitation, the Oregon Department of Human Services, Center for Health Statistics, disclaims any liability for compilation and typographical errors and accuracy of the information that may be contained in the data and reserves the right to make changes to data within the database at any time without notice.
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