Although some opponents of abortion consider it a cause of death, medical authorities do not give personality to fetuses that are not viable outside the womb and, therefore, abortions are not reported as deaths in these statistics. [5] The verbal autopsy has become an important source of information on causes of death in populations without a medical certificate. A verbal autopsy is an interview with family members or caregivers of the deceased using a structured questionnaire to identify signs and symptoms and other relevant information that can then be used to assign a probable underlying cause of death. Each revision of the ICD has resulted in discontinuities in trends in causes of death. These discontinuities are measured using comparative ratios that are essential for interpreting mortality trends. (See also sources and definitions, comparability ratio.) Further explanations are available at: www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality/comparability_icd.htm. (See also sources and definitions, comparability; International Classification of Diseases [ICD]; and National Vital Statistics System [NDMS]: Multiple Causes of Death File.) Causes of death are sometimes disputed by relatives or members of the public, especially if there is some degree of uncertainty or ambiguity about the cause of death. Sometimes such disputes can result from a conspiracy theory or sometimes incite it. Allows analysis of cause-of-death data coded in ICD-10 and ICD-11. 2 Using 2007 data, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) introduced the J09 category to code the avian influenza virus. In 2009, the title of ICD-10 code J09 was changed from “Influenza due to an identified avian influenza virus” to “Influenza due to certain identified influenza viruses” to include deaths due to influenza A (H1N1) virus in ICD-10 J09 for the 2009 and subsequent data years. 4 Using 2001 data, NCHS introduced *U01–*U03 categories to classify and code deaths due to acts of terrorism.

An asterisk (*) indicates codes that are not part of ICD-10. In law, medicine and statistics, cause of death is an official determination of the conditions leading to a person`s death, which can be noted on a death certificate. The cause of death is determined by a coroner. The cause of death is a specific disease or injury, as opposed to the type of death, which includes a small number of categories such as “natural”, “accident”, “suicide” and “murder”[1], which have different legal implications. [2] For national mortality statistics, each death is attributed to an underlying disease, based on the information reported on the death certificate and using international rules to select the underlying cause of death from the conditions specified on the certificate. The underlying cause is defined by the World Health Organization as “the disease or injury that triggered the train of pathological events leading directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence that caused the fatal injury.” In general, death certificates contain more medical information than the underlying cause of death. Conditions that are not chosen as the underlying cause of death represent non-underlying causes of death, also known as multiple causes of death. ICD (International Classification of Diseases) codes are often used to systematically record the nature and cause of death, making it easier to compile statistics and compare events across jurisdictions. [3] Effective public health interventions prevent harm or death by breaking the chain of events leading to harm and death. WHO has defined the “underlying cause of death” as: Not applicable; Cause of death codes are not given for causes not listed in Health, USA. Software that helps producers of cause-of-death statistics strengthen their ability to regularly check the plausibility of their data encoding.

The rules adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) to select a single cause or condition from death certificates for the systematic tabular collection of mortality statistics are provided to standardize the production of mortality data. Health authorities advise against using age as a cause of death, as it does not benefit public health or medical research. [6] Aging is not a scientifically accepted cause of death; It is believed that there is always a more direct cause, although in some cases it may be unknown and could be one of the many diseases associated with age. As an indirect or non-determinant factor, biological ageing is the main contributor to deaths worldwide. It is estimated that of the approximately 150,000 people who die every day worldwide, about two-thirds – 100,000 per day – die from age-related causes. [7] In industrialized countries, the proportion is significantly higher at 90%. [7] In recent years, there have been official claims about the possibility of recognizing aging itself as a disease. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] If this is the case, the situation may change. In 1967, the twentieth World Health Assembly defined the causes of death to be recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death as “all”.

The principle of cause of death and underlying cause of death can be applied uniformly using the medical certificate form recommended by the World Health Assembly. It is the responsibility of the physician signing the death certificate to indicate which medical conditions directly led to the death and to indicate any previous conditions that led to the underlying cause of death. Mortality coding software is a program that helps code, select the only underlying cause of death, and assess the quality of coding or data quality at the population level. WHO`s integrated digital open rule cause of death software helps select the underlying cause of death. It can be used online and offline. The ICD mortality rules were converted to a digital format for processing by this software. WHO is working to bring different efforts into line in the programming of these software. The primary or underlying cause of death is defined as the condition or injury (or circumstances of injury) that triggered the series of pathological events leading directly to death.

Sometimes the question arises as to which of several existing diseases caused death. The clinician can logically say that none of the diseases alone caused death in a particular patient, but the complex of conditions. Only the treating physician can adequately assess which of the conditions was the most important factor in the patient`s death; Correctly completing about 80,000 death certificates per year forces vital statistics nosologists to interpret the importance of the physician.