Advancements in the National Vital Statistics System to Meet the Real-Time Data Needs of a Pandemic

Farida B Ahmad; Robert N Anderson; Karen Knight; Lauren M Rossen; Paul D Sutton

doi:10.2105/AJPH.2021.306519

Advancements in the National Vital Statistics System to Meet the Real-Time Data Needs of a Pandemic

Am J Public Health. 2021 Dec;111(12):2133-2140. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2021.306519.

Authors

Farida B Ahmad¹, Robert N Anderson¹, Karen Knight¹, Lauren M Rossen¹, Paul D Sutton¹

Affiliation

¹ All authors are with the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Hyattsville, MD. Note. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the CDC.

Abstract

The National Center for Health Statistics' (NCHS's) National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) collects, processes, codes, and reviews death certificate data and disseminates the data in annual data files and reports. With the global rise of COVID-19 in early 2020, the NCHS mobilized to rapidly respond to the growing need for reliable, accurate, and complete real-time data on COVID-19 deaths. Within weeks of the first reported US cases, NCHS developed certification guidance, adjusted internal data processing systems, and stood up a surveillance system to release daily updates of COVID-19 deaths to track the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on US mortality. This report describes the processes that NCHS took to produce timely mortality data in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(12):2133-2140. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306519).

MeSH terms

COVID-19 / mortality*
Cause of Death
Clinical Coding / standards
Data Collection / standards*
Ethnic and Racial Minorities
Guidelines as Topic
Health Status Disparities
Humans
Public Health Surveillance / methods*
SARS-CoV-2
Sociodemographic Factors
Time Factors
United States / epidemiology
Vital Statistics*