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.

Description:This data deposit contains the Numerical Identification Death Files (National Archives Identifier 23845618), the NUMIDENT SS-5 Application Files (National Archives Identifier 23845613), the NUMIDENT Claims Files (National Archives Identifier 23852747), and the associated technical documentation. Data Acquisition:These files were e-delivered to Anthony Wray via secure link by the Electronic Records Division of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on 17 October 2019, as per a digitized reproduction order (Quote QO1-525370500 and Quote QO1-528389077). The packing slip is included in the data deposit (docs/Packing Slip.PDF).Rights to Publish:The data are in the public domain, as confirmed by emails received from NARA on 28 December 2023 and 3 January 2024 (see docs/permission_to_publish_email.pdf).How to Cite: Please adhere to the citation and data usage guidelines when using this dataset. See the included LICENSE.txt and README.md files for details. Details:The Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936–2007, series contains records for every Social Security number (SSN) assigned to individuals with a verified death or who would have been over 110 years old by December 31, 2007. There are three types of entries in NUMIDENT: application (SS-5), claim, and death records. A NUMIDENT record may contain more than one entry. Information contained in NUMIDENT records includes: each applicant's full name, SSN, date of birth, place of birth, citizenship, sex, father's name, mother's maiden name, and race/ethnic description (optional). NUMIDENT includes information regarding any subsequent changes made to the applicant's record, including name changes and life or death claims. The death records in NUMIDENT do not include any State reported deaths in accordance with the Social Security Act section 205(r). There are 72,182,729 SS-5 records entries; 25,230,486 claim record entries; and 49,459,293 death record entries.See https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12004494 for more information.Related Data:Visit the CenSoc Project for public micro datasets linked to NUMIDENT: https://censoc.berkeley.edu/.

aIncludes all ICD-10 codes not assigned to one of the other categories; examples include diabetes mellitus, all gastrointestinal diseases, hematologic diseases, etc.bIncludes 333 deaths that did not have death certificate information because they were identified from Social Security records, but not from the national death index (NDI), plus a small number of individuals identified from the NDI whose death certificate data were insufficient to assign a cause of death.cOne subject in the comparator group developed MS post-entry into the study.MS, multiple sclerosis.