Guidance for Certifying Deaths Due to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

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This COCA Call will be held on Friday, March 27, 2020

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Due to the high demand we anticipate for this COCA Call, we encourage participants to consider viewing on Facebook. To see the call live, please click on COCA’s Facebook Page.

The transcript and fully captioned video will be posted within the next few days.

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Overview

Monitoring the emergence of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and guiding public health response requires accurate and timely mortality data. Mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) is a key source of information on causes of death. These data are derived from information reported on death certificates. Death certificates are one of the few sources of health-related data that are comparable for small geographic areas and are available over a long time period in the United States. The data are used to examine the characteristics of those dying in the United States, calculate life expectancy, compare mortality trends with other countries, and more recently, to monitor deaths due to COVID-19.

To promote timely and accurate information on deaths due to COVID-19, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) released a Vital Statistics Reporting Guidance document on how to certify deaths due to COVID-19. This document provides guidance to death certifiers on proper cause-of-death certification for cases where confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection resulted in death.

During this COCA Call, presenters will provide an overview of the importance of mortality data, discuss the NCHS publication and the guidance it provides to clinicians who may need to certify a death involving COVID-19, and present a summary of COVID-19 surveillance through the NVSS.

Presenters

Robert N. Anderson, PhD
Chief, Mortality Statistics Branch
National Center for Health Statistics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Margaret Warner, PhD
Injury Epidemiologist
National Center for Health Statistics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Lee Anne Flagg, PhD
Statistician (Health)
National Center for Health Statistics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Farida Ahmad, MPH
Mortality Surveillance Lead
National Center for Health Statistics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Call Details

When: Thursday, April 16,
2020, 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)

Watch on Facebook: You may also participate in this COCA Call by joining COCA’s Facebook Live.

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Webinar ID: 161 493 0619

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Page last reviewed: January 8, 2020