Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS™) Fatal Injury Reports Help Menu

  1. WISQARS Tutorials: Fatal Injury Mapping, Fatal Injury Reports, Leading Causes of Death Reports, and Years of Potential Life LostA step-by-step introduction to using the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS™) Fatal Injury Mapping, Fatal Injury Reports, Leading Causes of Death Reports, and Years of Potential Life Lost
  2. About Mortality (Fatal Injury) ReportsAn overview of mortality reports and the options offered
  3. About Leading Causes of Death ReportsAn overview of leading causes of death reports and the options offered
  4. About Years of Potential Life LostAn overview of years of potential life lost reports and the options offered
  5. Definitions of Report Data ElementsThorough definitions of the data elements mentioned in the report request options and in the reports themselves
  6. Data SourcesFurther explanation of the purpose of and data sources for WISQARS Fatal and the process of compiling the data
  7. Frequently Asked QuestionsAnswers to common questions about WISQARS Fatal
  8. ReferencesReferences used within this help file

    2.0 Fatal Injury Reports – Overview
    WISQARS Fatal’s mortality reports provide tables of the total numbers of injury-related deaths and death rates per 100,000 population, using the annual mortality data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), CDC. For more information, see Data Sources.

    You can request a report to list deaths by

    • Cause (mechanism)and intent (manner) of injury
    • Census region / state of residence
    • Race
    • Hispanic origin
    • Sex
    • Age
    • Year(s) of report.

    In addition, the reports offer advanced options of

    • Output groups
    • Age adjusting
    • Age selection.

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    3.0 Leading Causes of Death Reports – Overview
    Leading causes of death reports use the annual mortality data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to compute the leading causes of death in the United States. These tables help show the impact of a particular cause of death and highlight the role that injuries play in U.S. mortality. Leading causes of death reports display the major causes of death from greatest to least. The reports show which causes result in the most deaths. The colored boxes in the leading causes of death report highlight injury deaths, and show the number of injury deaths by underlying-cause-of-death International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes. Simply click on a colored box to view Injury deaths by individual ICD codes; then follow the instructions below the table title. For more information, see Data Sources .

    You can request a leading cause of death report by

    • Census region / state of residence,
    • Race,
    • Hispanic origin,
    • Sex,
    • Year(s) of report, or
    • Number of causes.

    In addition, the advanced options allow you to

    • Format the report by age group;
    • Request statistics for
      • leading causes of death (and ICD code detail),
      • leading causes of injury death
      • unintentional causes of injury death
      • violence-related causes of injury death
    • Choose the number of causes reported for each age group;
    • Download data from a chart or graph into a spreadsheet;
    • Capture and transfer a chart or graph into Power Point or other software.

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    4.0 Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) Reports – Overview
    Years of potential life lost (YPLL) is a measure of premature mortality (early death). YPLL provides insight into the impact of injury-related death on society compared to other leading causes of death. This measure is important for injury prevention because injury is the leading cause of death for persons aged 1 through 34 years. In 1999, unintentional injury was the 5th leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 97,860 deaths. Also, unintentional injury was the leading cause of years lost before age 65 (YPLL-65) with 1,999,783 years lost. For more information, see Data Sources .

    For a given cause category, WISQARS Fatal calculates the years lost before age 65 (YPLL-65) through two steps. First, the system subtracts each deceased person’s age at death from 65. Next, the system adds the results — the “years lost”– for all deceased people in that category. WISQARS Fatal allows you to change the standard age from 65 to other ages in five-year increments up to age 85 (e.g., 70, 75, 80, 85).

    WISQARS Years of Potential Life Lost Reports allow you to request YPLL measures by

    • Census region / state of residence
    • Race
    • Hispanic origin
    • Sex
    • Year
    • Calculate YPLL from age(offers choice of standard ages).

    In addition, advanced options allow you to request

    • Statistic reported — offers choice among these YPLL-related statistics:
      • YPLLs
      • number of deaths
      • crude YPLL rate per 100,000 population
      • age-adjusted YPLL rate per 100,000 population
    • Report subject — statistics for
      • leading causes of death
      • leading causes of injury death,
      • a specific cause (mechanism) and intent (manner) of injury death
    • Number of causes (if report subject is leading causes of death or of injury death)
    • Standard year (for age-adjusting).

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    References

    1. Hoyert DL, Arias E, Smith BL, Murphy SL, Kochanek KD. Deaths: Final data for 1999. National Vital Statistics Reports. Vol. 49, No. 8, Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics, 2001.
    2. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Tracking healthy people 2010. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 2000.
    3. Hoyert DL, Anderson RN. Age-adjusted death rates: Trend data based on the year 2000 standard population. National Vital Statistics Reports. Vol. 49, No. 9, Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics, 2001.
    4. World Health Organization. International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems. Tenth revision. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 1992.
    5. National Center for Health Statistics. Preliminary external cause of injury mortality matrix for ICD-10.. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics, 2001. Available from URL: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ice/icd10_transcode.pdf
    6. World Health Organization. International classification of diseases, injuries, and causes of death. Ninth revision, Vols. I and II. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 1977.
    7. Anderson RN, Minino AM, Hoyert DL, Rosenberg, HM. Comparability of cause of death between ICD-9 and ICD-10: Preliminary estimates. National Vital Statistics Reports. Vol.49, No. 2, Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics, 2001.
    8. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Revised framework of E-code groupings for presenting injury mortality and morbidity data. Atlanta, Georgia: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 2001.
    9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recommended framework for presenting injury mortality data. MMWR 1997; 46(RR-14):1-32.

    WISQARS Fatal Injury Reports