NDI - sporedata/researchdesigneR GitHub Wiki
General description
The National Death Index (NDI) is a centralized death record information database in state statistics offices, maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). It is available to investigators for statistical purposes in medical and health research. It helps health and medical investigators in determining whether persons in their studies have died.
Variable categories
- This database provides names of the states, date, and the corresponding death certificate numbers in which those deaths occurred.
Limitations
- The multiple-cause fields are left blank.
- The cause death codes from the death certificate of Illinois state are not available, because the law prohibits the release of this information whenever selected causes of death appear on a death certificate.
- There is unlinkable cause of death information, because of minor differences each year in the cutoff dates before the creation of the NDI file;
- All deaths occurring annually in the United States are processed, except those of calendar years 1981 and 1982.