Webinar "The issues of temporal consistency of cause-of-death data within the ICD-10 period"

On May 13, the regular seminar of the Modern Demography series was held. At the seminar, Inna Daniliva (Research Fellow of the International laboratory for population and health NRU HSE, Research Scientist of the Laboratory of demographic data of Max Planck Institute for demographic research) the topic "The issues of temporal consistency of cause-of-death data within the ICD-10 period"

The analysis of cause-specific mortality trends is a powerful tool that is used in demographic and epidemiological research, but is also widely used by authorities to develop public health goals, and to monitor the progress made in achieving them. In this regard, it is important that the analyzed data are consistent over time.Changes in systems for collecting data on causes of death may produce artificial breaks or shifts in cause-specific mortality series and mislead data users. The best-known and examples of such breaks are those caused by the revisions of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Meanwhile, some changes may occur within the same ICD revision.In the seminar, it will be discussed how changes in the process of collecting data on causes of death within the same ICD revision (ICD-10) may affect the temporal consistency of the data. The examples of the breaks in the cause-specific mortality trends caused by introducing changes to the system for collecting data will be demonstrated based on the data of European countries and Russia. The special focus will be given to the practice of ICD-updates and to the switch from manual to automated coding. The specific problems of the decentralized data collection system – this system exists in Russia – and their influence on the temporal consistency of the data will also be discussed.