Oklahoma CODES
Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System
College of Continuing Education
University of Oklahoma

Death Data

Multiple cause of death (TRANSAX) data must be used for analyses of deaths from injuries, because an injury code may not be used as an underlying cause of death code (ICD-9 800-999; ICD-10 S00-T983).

Note the code set and rules for assigning underlying cause of death changed in 1999 to ICD-10. The instruction manuals for classifying underlying and multiple cause of death along with tabulation lists are available on the National Center for Health Statistics website. ICD-10 has almost twice as many categories as ICD-9.

According to CDC, there are two choices of cause of death codes to analyze in multiple cause of death (TRANSAX) data:

  1. Entity cause of death codes: Includes each cause of death listed on the death certificate, or
  2. Record axis cause of death codes: combines information from several codes when appropriate into one code. For example, acute myocardial infarction and hypertension as entities on a death certificate would be combined into Acute myocardial infarction with hypertensive disease.

CDC recommends using the record axis cause of death codes for analyses. For more information, see The Death Certificate as a Source of Injury Data by Harry M. Rosenberg, Ph.D. and Kenneth D. Kochanek, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics.

See also:

Public and Community Services | College of Continuing Education | University of Oklahoma |