The Swedish cause of death register

Hannah Louise Brooke,Rickard Ljung,Maria Feychting,Henrik Druid,Jonas Filip Ludvigsson,Jesper Hörnblad,Lars Age Johansson,Mats Talbäck

doi:10.1007/s10654-017-0316-1

Abstract

Sweden has a long tradition of recording cause of death data. The Swedish cause of death register is a high quality virtually complete register of all deaths in Sweden since 1952. Although originally created for official statistics, it is a highly important data source for medical research since it can be linked to many other national registers, which contain data on social and health factors in the Swedish population. For the appropriate use of this register, it is fundamental to understand its origins and composition. In this paper we describe the origins and composition of the Swedish cause of death register, set out the key strengths and weaknesses of the register, and present the main causes of death across age groups and over time in Sweden. This paper provides a guide and reference to individuals and organisations interested in data from the Swedish cause of death register.

Highlights

Cause of death statistics are essential for monitoring trends in health and disease
In this paper we describe the origins and composition of the Swedish cause of death register, set out the key strengths and weaknesses of the register, and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
86% concordance between medical records and the cause of death register was reported for prostate cancer [9], and a similar level of agreement was reported for cardiovascular disease deaths at a high level of classification (ICD-10 codes at the three digit level), which reduced when more detailed codes were examined [10]

Summary

METHODS

Hannah Louise Brooke1 • Mats Talback1 • Jesper Hornblad2 • Lars Age Johansson3 • Jonas Filip Ludvigsson4,5,6,7 • Henrik Druid8 • Maria Feychting1 • Rickard Ljung1 Received: 22 March 2017 / Accepted: 21 September 2017 / Published online: 5 October 2017 Ó The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication

Introduction

Summary

Findings

Compliance with ethical standards