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SCAN Death Tables


What is the Login Page?

How can I find a specific cause of death?

What does "drilling down" into causes of death mean?

Why are the death datasets separated into 1990-1998 and 1999-2000?

What are comparability ratios?

How do they work?

Where can I find them?

How can I generate a table that shows the leading causes of death for a specific year?

Why the selection total is less than the state total even if I selected all the zip codes listed? Why the zip code I am looking for is not in the selectable list?



What is the Login page?
This page enables those who have the password to access the data without the confidentiality rules applied. If access to this site is wanted please contact the Division of Biostatistics and Health GIS.


How can I find a specific cause of death?

All causes of death available through SCAN are listed on the Category File Structure Page. Causes are shown at two levels: a general level, a detailed level.


What does "drilling down" into causes of death mean?

Causes are defined at two levels: a general level and a detailed level. In order to maneuver from the most general level to more detailed levels for cause of death, you must "drill down" into the output tables to view the higher levels of detail.
  1. General Categories (most general level of detail)
    1. Subcategories (next level of detail)
To view a table about a subcategory or specific category, it is necessary to drill down. The drill down process begins by selecting the general cause of death category in Step 7 of SCAN DEATH. After this initial request is submitted, the resulting table will have the ability to be drilled into by clicking on the general cause of death label. Just click the high-lighted general cause of death category to view the subcategories within it. For example:
  1. Malignant Neoplasms (Cancer)
    1. Malignant neoplasm of stomach


Why are the death datasets separated into 1990-1998 and 1999-2000?

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) changed from Version 9 to Version 10. This revision of the ICD codes was a complete break. 1999 is the first year in which ICD-10 codes were used for classification purposes. Even though this was a complete break, NCHS has provided comparability ratios so that rates can be compared across the ICD-9 to ICD-10 changes.


What are comparability ratios?

Comparability ratios are ratios used so that rates from different ICD revisions years can be compared as trends.

How do they work?

Multiply prior revision (ie, ICD-9) rates by the comparability ratio. This resulting number is comparable to current revision (ie, ICD-10) rates.

Where can I find them?

Table 1 on page 22 of NCHS's Comparability of Causes of Death from ICD-9 to ICD-10 (PDF file) contains estimated comparability ratios for the 113 causes of death which may be underlying causes of death.

How can I generate a table that shows the leading causes of death for a specific year?

Step 1: Select "Cause of death".
Step 2: Select "Year".
Step 3: Select the year(s) you are interested in.
Step 4 (optional): You can specify a specific race, sex, and/or age.
Step 5: Select counties.
Step 6: Select South Carolina.
Step 7: Select "statistic" and multiselect the causes of death starting from "Accidents" with the last one "Ulcers".
Step 8: Select "Frequencies".

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