ERC: Genealogy and Family History: Records
THE INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES (ICD)
International Classification of Diseases (ICD):
If you possess a death certificate
that uses a number to codify the cause of death of an individual, and you
want to know what the actual cause of death was, please refer to the website
whose link is given above. There are such codes from 1900 to the present, revised more or
less every seven to fifteen years and now in its tenth revision. If you are
going to use this information to learn about a particular cause of death, be
sure to use the ICD table for the correct year, otherwise you will
arrive at the wrong cause of death (this can be disconcerting!) Also note that many death
certificates list secondary causes of death as well. Not all death
certificates use the ICD codes; some actually spell out the primary and
secondary causes of death. Often these ICD numbers are used to calculate
morbidity and mortality rates.
|
The newest revision of the ICD is the
tenth. The explanation below comes from the WHO (World Health
Organization) and gives a brief history and explanation of what the
ICD is:
"ICD-10 was endorsed by the
Forty-third World Health Assembly in May 1990 and came into use in
WHO Member States as from 1994. The classification is the latest in
a series which has its origins in the 1850s. The first edition,
known as the International List of Causes of Death, was adopted by
the International Statistical Institute in 1893. WHO took over the
responsibility for the ICD at its creation in 1948 when the Sixth
Revision, which included causes of morbidity for the first time, was
published.
The ICD has become the international
standard diagnostic classification for all general epidemiological
and many health management purposes. These include the analysis of
the general health situation of population groups and monitoring of
the incidence and prevalence of diseases and other health problems
in relation to other variables such as the characteristics and
circumstances of the individuals affected.
It is used to classify diseases and
other health problems recorded on many types of health and vital
records including death certificates and hospital records. In
addition to enabling the storage and retrieval of diagnostic
information for clinical and epidemiological purposes, these records
also provide the basis for the compilation of national mortality and
morbidity statistics by WHO Member States."
Copyright © 2006 Museum of Family History
All rights reserved.
Image Use Policy
|