Registry

Type of Study

Registry

Data gathering method

Physician-completed form

Conditions of access

Microdata for a 20% sample of any given year's total cause of death statistics is made available annually.

Anonymised Microdata

Data is available in English.

Data collection ongoing since 1970 (42 years). The sample includes all deaths registered in Austria each year. This was approximately 76,479 deaths in 2011.

1970

Disaggregated data is available by year, by residential district, by gender, age, marital status, age of surviving partner, cause of death, country at birth, nationality at death, religion, and place of death.

Registered deaths in Austrian population

Communities, political districts, NUTS 3-Regions, States, NUTS 1

No age range specified

Data is collected on cause of death according to 78 categories, sociodemographic information about the deceased, as well as marital status. Corresponds to Health and Performance Topic

• "Health Statistics Yearbook, 2011" (Jahrbuch der Gesundheitsstatistik 2011) • "Vital Events Statistics, Including Cause of Death Statistics from 2010" (Statistik der Standesfälle einschließlich Todesursachenstatistik ab 2010)

ICD (International Classification of Diseases)

Linked to registry of births and marriages, and Cancer statistics (Krebstatistik)

No errors reported Plausibility checks are conducted annually before final results are released. Coders receive training annually in an effort to reduce the number of entry errors and in cases of missing data, phone calls are placed to the person who filled out the form.

No breaks reported

As of 2009, persons of Austrian origin residing abroad at time of death are not captured in this data set; Coders receive training annually and are updated on new codes and new terminology as needed to ensure a high level of consistency.

Strengths: In the future, the registry will participate in the cross-national Health Expenditure by Diseases and Conditions (HEDIC) study. The registry is well linked with other national registries (Cancer and Birth and Marriage statistics) and a portion of the microdata is made available to the public annually. Through the cause of death form, basic socio-demographic data is collected, which enables researchers to analyse particular groups of the population, such as migrants, and based on gender and age. Weaknesses: Data accuracy and completeness depends on a physician completing the form and the local registry submitting it, which may result in inconsistency of some of the information.