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Reconstructing Long-Term Coherent Cause-of-Death Series, a Necessary Step for Analyzing Trends

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Abstract

Every time the classification of causes of death is changed, time series of deaths by cause are disrupted in more or less profound ways. When changes involve only the merging of several items or splitting a single item into several new categories, the problems caused by these ruptures are not too difficult to solve. A more or less severe imbroglio occurs, however, each time a new item results from recombining portions of different split items. Sometimes, but very rarely, some countries proceed to a bridge coding during the year of transition, which can help reconstruct coherent time series. This article first summarizes the general principles of the method developed for France by Meslé and Vallin to reconstruct complete series for France from 1925 to 1999 in the detailed list of the 9th WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD), doing so by successively bridging a posteriori the five versions of the ICD that were in use during that period. Second, it reports on several methodological improvements that have been developed with the aim to reconstruct and analyze mortality trends by cause in sixteen industrialized countries.

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Fig. 1

Source: Barbieri and Meslé 2008, p. 25

Fig. 2

Source: Meslé and Vallin 2008, pp. 353–354

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Notes

  1. 1925 is the first year for which national statistics of death by sex, age, and cause are available; 1978 is the last year ruled by 1CD-8 in France.

  2. For example, in England in 1979, the OPCS undertook a dual classification of a sample of deaths using the intermediate lists from both the eighth and ninth revisions of the ICD, which made it possible to reconstruct the corresponding statistical series with constant definitions (Meslé and Vallin 1993). In the USA, bridge coding studies have been conducted for the last 6 ICD-transitions at various levels of detail (NCHS 2001).

  3. The most elaborate exercise was without a doubt the transition from the fifth revision (adopted in 1938 and still under the influence of Bertillon’s first classifications) to the sixth revision (adopted in 1948 under the auspices of the WHO and greatly influenced by the American medical tradition).

  4. Further details on the underlying statistics as well as R routines for reproducing the results can be found in associated supplementary material.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR). This collaboration was supported by two research grants: Project ANR-12-FRAL-0003-01 “Diverging Trends in Mortality and Future Health Challenges” (DIMOCHA). AXA project “Mortality Divergence and Causes of Death” (MODICOD).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INED, Paris, France

    Markéta Pechholdová, Carlo-Giovanni Camarda, France Meslé & Jacques Vallin

  2. University of Economics, Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

    Markéta Pechholdová

Authors
  1. Markéta Pechholdová
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  2. Carlo-Giovanni Camarda
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  3. France Meslé
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  4. Jacques Vallin
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Correspondence to Markéta Pechholdová.

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Pechholdová, M., Camarda, CG., Meslé, F. et al. Reconstructing Long-Term Coherent Cause-of-Death Series, a Necessary Step for Analyzing Trends. Eur J Population 33, 629–650 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-017-9453-1

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