National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality
Public-use Data Files

Data file description

List of variables at a glance

Data file technical characteristics

Data files

Documentation contents

Methods

Sample programs

Data file description

The public-use versions of the NHIS Linked Mortality Files were subjected to data perturbation techniques to reduce the risk of respondent re-identification while increasing the accessibility of NCHS micro data files. Synthetic data was substituted for the actual date and underlying cause of death data for selected decedent records. Information regarding vital status was not perturbed. The restricted-use versions of the NHIS Linked Mortality Files are not subjected to data perturbation techniques. NCHS has conducted a comparative analysis of results obtained from the public-use and restricted-use NHIS Linked Mortality Files.

List of variables at a glance

NHIS Public-use ID

Eligibility status

Final mortality status

Quarter of death

Year of death

113 Underlying cause of death codes (ICD-9 and ICD-10)

Adjusted sample weights

New PSU defined for NHIS 1986-2000

New Strata defined for NHIS 1986-2000

Multiple Cause of Death Flags

Data file technical characteristics

The NHIS Linked Mortality Public-use data files are available in ASCII file formats. The following list provides the number of file records per survey.

NHIS 1986 62,052

NHIS 1987 122,859

NHIS 1988 122,310

NHIS 1989 116,929

NHIS 1990 119,631

NHIS 1991 120,032

NHIS 1992 128,412

NHIS 1993 109,671

NHIS 1994 116,179

NHIS 1995 102,467

NHIS 1996 63,402

NHIS 1997 103,477