The National Death Index (NDI) is a centralized database of death record information on file in state vital statistics offices. Working with these state offices, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) established the NDI as a resource to aid epidemiologists and other health and medical investigators with their mortality ascertainment activities. Assists investigators in determining whether persons in their studies have died and, if so, provide the names of the states in which those deaths occurred, the dates of death, and the corresponding death certificate numbers. Investigators can then make arrangements with the appropriate state offices to obtain copies of death certificates or specific statistical information such as manner of death or educational level. Cause of death codes may also be obtained using the NDI Plus service. Records from 1979 through 2011 are currently available and contain a standard set of identifying information on each death. Death records are added to the NDI file annually, approximately 12 months after the end of a particular calendar year. 2012 should be available summer 2014. Early Release Program for 2013 is now available. The NDI service is available to investigators solely for statistical purposes in medical and health research. The service is not accessible to organizations or the general public for legal, administrative, or genealogy purposes.

This dataset examines the number of unidentified persons reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) National Death Index (NDI), by State, from 1980 to 2004. This report also looks at the number of unidentified human remains reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Unidentified Person File. It describes the characteristics by race and gender and the manner of death. Highlights include the following: Between 1980 and 2004, about 10,300 unidentified human remains were reported to the National Death Index (NDI). Almost three-quarters of unidentified persons were reported by 5 states; Arizona, California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Of the 2,900 National Crime Information Center records that contained data on the manner of death, 27% were ruled homicides; 12%, accidental deaths; 7%, natural causes; and 5%, suicides. The majority of unidentified persons were white (70%); blacks made up 15% of unidentified persons; and race could not be determined in 13% of the cases. For more information about this data go to: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/uhrus04.htm

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey II: Mortality Study, 1992 (NH2MS) followed a subset of the participants in the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II). The NH2MS cohort is comprised of adult respondents to the NHANES II who were 30-75 years of age at the time of the NHANES II, and who were interviewed and examined for NHANES II. Some participants who were 74 years of age during their interview turned 75 years old between their interview and the examination. The NHANES series of data collections included standardized physical examinations, laboratory tests, and interviews that covered various health-related topics. The NH2MS was designed to investigate the association between factors measured at baseline and overall mortality or death from specific causes. The NH2MS involved searching national databases containing information about mortality and causes of death. The study was entirely passive: participants were not recontacted, nor were all death certificates obtained. Instead, mortality status was ascertained solely by computerized matching to national databases and evaluation of the resulting matches. Furthermore, no recontact is planned in the future. Rather, matching to the National Death Index (NDI) and to other national databases will continue on a periodic basis. The Mortality Status file (Part 1) contains mortality status and demographic data for all NH2MS participants who were 30-75 years of age at their NHANES II examination. The Cause of Death file (Part 2) contains one record for each known decedent for whom multiple causes of death were obtained (2,103 out of the 2,145 participants identified as deceased). Cause of death is missing for some decedents either because there was no matching record on the NCHS Multiple Cause of Death files or the death certificate was not found through the state vital statistics office.

This data collection supplies date and cause of death data for sample persons included in the National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) for the years 1986 through 1994. Beginning with survey year 1986, linkage information was collected on NHIS respondents aged 18 and older to allow for matching with other data systems such as the National Death Index (NDI). The Multiple Cause of Death (MCD) data files contain information on those persons with scores high enough to be considered deceased or scores high enough that they may be included in an analysis as deceased. The Ineligible Cases data files contain person IDs of those NHIS participants under the age of 18 as well as those with insufficient information to permit linkage with the NDI. These cases should be excluded from the NHIS survey data files prior to analysis. Linkage of the NHIS respondents with the NDI provides a longitudinal component to the NHIS that allows for the ascertainment of vital status. The addition of vital status permits the use of NHIS data to estimate survival, mortality, and life expectancy while using the richness of the NHIS questionnaires, both core and supplements, as covariates. These data files must be used in conjunction with the basic NHIS data files (1986 [ICPSR 8976], 1987 [ICPSR 9195], 1988 [ICPSR 9412], 1989 [ICPSR 9583], 1990 [ICPSR 9839], 1991 [ICPSR 6049], 1992 [ICPSR 6343], 1993 [ICPSR 6534], 1994 [ICPSR 6724]). Variables included in the MCD files cover year of interview, quarter, household number, person number, month and year of death, vital status, and causes of death. The Ineligible Cases files contain a person ID that matches columns 3-16 on the NHIS public use data files.

Abstract (en): Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) is a large multi-wave prospective study of spousal bereavement. Face-to-face baseline interviews with married older adults in the Detroit, Michigan standardized metropolitan statistical area (SMSA) were conducted between June 1987 and April 1988, and follow-up interviews were conducted at six months (Wave 1), 18 months (Wave 2), and 48 months (Wave 3) after a spouse's death. Each widowed person was assigned a same-age, same-sex, same-race matched control from the baseline sample. Controls were interviewed again at each of the three follow-ups as well. Spousal loss was monitored using state-provided monthly death records and through daily obituaries from local area newspapers. The National Death Index (NDI) and direct ascertainment of death certificates were used to confirm all deaths. The primary strength of the CLOC study is its ability to measure spousal bereavement quantitatively. For this purpose a global grief scale and six grief subscales, unique to the CLOC study, were prepared. Depression was measured for all respondents with conceptualizations of depression at each wave, as well as major depressive episodes according to DSM-III-R criteria. Other survey questions focused on the social, psychological, and physical functioning of older adults (e.g., demographic, financial, housing, life events, social support, work and activities, marriage and family, religion, health and well-being). For a portion of the respondents (n = 432) in what was referred to as the MacBat study, various biomedical indicators (motor and cognitive, physiological, endocrinological and biochemical) were measured as well. The CLOC study has been subset into four primary datasets. The core, or Complete, dataset (Part 1) contains all available variables from all four waves of the study (Baseline, W1, W2, W3) for the entire sample of 1,532 persons (excluding clones, the 13 individuals who initially participated in a follow-up interview as control subjects, but who subsequently experienced spousal loss, and then entered the study as bereaved subjects). The Baseline Only dataset (Part 2) contains all variables collected at the baseline interview (V1-V957) for the entire sample of 1,532 persons (excluding clones). It also contains the baseline physiological variables (V20001-V20991) from the subsample of 432 persons who also participated in the baseline MacBat portion of the study. The Widowed-Controls Only datasets (Parts 3 and 4) contain all available data from anyone who participated as either a widowed person or a control subject in at least one of the three CLOC follow-up surveys (W1, W2, W3). This dataset is available with or without clones (n = 558 subjects including clones, and n= 545 excluding clones). The Couples Only dataset (Part 5) contains data collected from both the husband and the wife of 423 couples (n = 846) and includes all available data from all four waves of data collection (baseline, W1, W2, W3). Each record contains data for the wife (the "V" variables) and data for the husband (the "S" variables). A Clones Only dataset (Part 6) is also included for the advanced user and contains data for the 13 individuals identified as clones. A case-control matched design is recommended for analysis of the Clones Only data. Noninstitutionalized, English-speaking married couples capable of participating in a two-hour face-to-face interview, in which the husband was at least age 65, from the Detroit, Michigan, standardized metropolitan statistical area (SMSA). Two-stage area probability sample of 1,532 married men and women. Women were oversampled in an effort to maximize the number of bereaved subjects. 2006-01-18 File QU3370.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads. Funding insitution(s): United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. National Institute on Aging (P.I., AG15948-01, AG610757-01, and AG05561-01). The availability of these data is made possible by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (Randolph M. Nesse, Principal Investigator, AG15948-01). The original data collection for the CLOC study was supported by NIA grants (Camille B. Wortman, Principal Investigator, AG610757-01, and James S. House, Principal Investigator, AG05561-01). Users are encouraged to check the CLOC Web site at http://www.cloc.isr.umich.edu for additional information.