Classifying the Dead: Toward a History of the Registration of Causes of Death

Alter, George; Carmichael, Ann G.

doi:10.1093/jhmas/54.2.114

Cited by 33 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Classification of causes of death in historic population studies can be problematic, since many causes of death registered in the early 20th century were symptomatic or otherwise vague, even despite the fact that a physician signed off on each of the deaths registered (Alter and Carmichael 1999;Kunitz 1999). The death registrations used in this study also predate the standardization of cause of death classifications, according to the International Classification of Diseases.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deadly occupations: Assessing tuberculosis and accidental mortality among male workers in Sydney and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, 1909–1917

Ludlow

Burke²

2013

CSP

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This study examines associations between occupation and cause of death among 802 working-age males (15 to 64 years of age) who died in two single-industry communities (Glace Bay and Sydney) Résumé Cette étude examine la relation entre l'activité et la cause de décès de 802 travailleurs masculins âgés de 15 à 64 ans de deux communautés à industrie unique (Glace Bay et Sydney) en Nouvelle-Écosse entre 1909 et 1917. Les emplois dans le secteur minier et de l'acier font l'objet d'une évaluation pour cause de mortalité chez les hommes décédés au début de l'ère industrielle au Canada et ciblent tout particulièrement les décès causés par la tuberculose (n=140 ou 18 % des décès) et les accidents (n=225 ou 28 % des décès). Si l'on tient compte de l'effet

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deadly occupations: Assessing tuberculosis and accidental mortality among male workers in Sydney and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, 1909–1917

Ludlow

Burke²

2013

CSP

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“…Anne Carmichael and George Alter indicate that, at its outset, registration of vital statistics was motivated by the interest of statisticians in recording population trends and patterns rather than by medical theory or practice. 23 However, as doctors became more involved in the process of registering cause of death, a tension arose between the interests of doctors and statisticians. The emergent statisticians of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were interested in statistical classification—that is, in grouping individual entities in such a way as to derive general principles governing deaths.…”

Section: Ignored Disease?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context

Ferguson¹

2015

Soc Hist Med

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Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was defined in 1969 and incorporated into the International Classification of Diseases a decade later. To advocates of SIDS as a diagnosis, medical interest in sudden infant death was long overdue. However, the definition of SIDS lacked positive diagnostic criteria, provoking some to view it as a ‘diagnostic dustbin’ for the disposal of problematic cases where cause of death was unclear. This paper examines the development of medical interest in sudden infant death in Britain during the middle decades of the twentieth century. It highlights the importance of recognising the historicity of SIDS as a diagnosis facilitated by changes in law and medicine over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It suggests that SIDS provides a definitive case study of the medicalisation of life and death, and a unique example of an officially recognised disease that had no symptoms, signs, pathology or patients.

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“…When death registration systems were first organized, problems quickly appeared in deciding how to attribute and classify causes of death 4–6 . A system created by Jacques Bertillon, chief statistician for the City of Paris, became the basis for the International Classification of Diseases, which has governed international mortality statistics since the early 20th century 7–10 …”

Section: The Uses Of Death Certificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Emergency Department to Vital Statistics: Cause of Death Uncertain

Keirns

Carr

2008

Academic Emergency Medicine

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Vital statistics are widely used to evaluate trends in health and illness, inform policy, and allocate resources among health priorities. Literature comparing autopsies to clinical death certification has shown that the clinical ''cause of death'' certification is inaccurate or incomplete in many cases. Short of increasing autopsies, however, these studies have proposed few improvements. Using the case of death certification in the emergency department (ED), the authors analyzed the current approach to death certification. The authors propose the following to improve the quality of data: 1) acceptance of the declaration ''manner of death, natural; cause of death, uncertain''; 2) training for physicians in the selection of appropriate underlying causes of death and ''chains of causation''; and 3) participation of physicians with ongoing relationships to the patient in the certification process.ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE 2008; 15:768-775 ª

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Classifying the Dead: Toward a History of the Registration of Causes of Death

Cited by 33 publications

References 0 publications

Deadly occupations: Assessing tuberculosis and accidental mortality among male workers in Sydney and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, 1909–1917

Deadly occupations: Assessing tuberculosis and accidental mortality among male workers in Sydney and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, 1909–1917

Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context

From the Emergency Department to Vital Statistics: Cause of Death Uncertain

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