Reference
Glossary
- Mortality (death rate)
- Deaths in a population over a period, usually expressed per 100,000 people. An age-adjusted death rate reweights age groups to a standard population so aging alone is less likely to create a false trend.
- Incidence
- New cases of a disease identified in a population during a period (for example, newly reported TB disease per 100,000).
- Prevalence
- How common a condition is at a survey point or period (for example, percent of adults with diabetes), including both new and existing cases meeting the definition.
- Underlying cause of death
- The cause selected by vital-statistics coding rules as the disease or injury that initiated the chain of events leading to death. It is not a full medical history.
- ICD revision
- Updates to the International Classification of Diseases change how deaths are grouped. Crossing an ICD revision can create a jump that is partly coding, not biology.
- Final vs provisional
- Final vital statistics have completed usual NCHS processing for a data year. Provisional counts can still change. This launch emphasizes final published rates from NCHS products cited on each page.