Mortality Definitions

Age

Ages are presented by Detailed Age Groups, Lifestages and Single Year of Age. Single year of age are created by Office of Health Indicators for Planning (OHIP), Department of Public Health. Also, note that selecting "all ages" will supersede any start and end age selection. Uncheck "all ages" to make an age-specific selection.

Age-Adjusted Rates

A weighted average of the age-specific rates, where the weights are the proportions of persons in the corresponding age groups of a standard population. The calculation of an Age-Adjusted Rate uses the year 2000 U.S. standard million. Benefit: Controls for differences in age structure so that observed differences in rates across areas such as counties are not due solely to differences in the proportion of people in different age groups in different areas. Rates are per 100,000 population.

Cause Categories/Groupings

OASIS Detailed Cause Groups: These categories can be more detailed than rankable cause categories and are not mutually exclusive. Causes are organized in parent-child relationships: For example 'Motor Vehicle Crashes' is a child cause of the 'External Causes' parent. Parent causes have a broader definition of ICD codes than child causes. Note: Adding up all the child causes will not necessarily add up to the parent cause.

Georgia Rankable Cause Groups: Georgia Rankable Causes are mutually exclusive cause categories and therefore rankable. They are unique to Georgia and were developed to represent mutually exclusive groups of ICD codes that are intended to share common etiology and/or common intervention.

NCHS Rankable Cause Groups: NCHS Rankable Causes are mutually exclusive cause categories and therefore rankable. They are prepared by the National Center for Health Statistics and used nationwide.

Cause Group use: See the Cause Definitions tables below for details of each cause category. Generally, use Rankable Cause Groups if ranking by cause and Detailed Cause Groups when looking for more detail.

Cause of Death

Reported causes of death are based on the underlying cause of death. The underlying cause of death is defined by the World Health Organization as the disease or injury that initiated the sequence of events leading directly to death or as the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury.

Death Rate

Formula = [Number of Deaths / Population] * 100,000. Rates that use Census Population Estimates in the denominator are unable to be calculated when the selected population is Unknown.

Education

The last grade of formal education completed at the time of death. Please note that sometimes the individual levels will not equal the total. This is due to records with Unknown Education Level.

Ethnicity

Hispanic or Latino includes persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.

International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM)

A statistical classification system, in use since 1979, that arranges diseases and injuries into groups according to established criteria. It is used to improve comparability of cause of death statistics reported by different governmental entities. Most ICD-9-CM codes are numeric and consist of three, four or five numbers and a description. The codes are revised approximately every 10 years by the World Health Organization and annual updates are published by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), now the Center for Medicare, Medicaid Services.

International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, (ICD-10)

An alphanumeric coding scheme that replaces ICD-9, and used for mortality data since 1999. ICD-10 codes were developed by the World Health Organization Collaborating Centres for Classification of Diseases.

Non-Rural

Any county with 50,000 or more total population according to the United States decennial census of 2010 or any future such census (GA Code § 31-6-2 and 31-7-94.1).

Percent of Deaths by Cause

The percent of deaths from a selected cause in the geography chosen of all deaths in the geography chosen. (If no cause is selected, the percent will always equal 100%.)
Formula = [Number of cause-specific deaths in a county or district / Number of deaths in a county or district] * 100

Percent of Death within State

The percent of deaths from a selected cause that the geography chosen contributes to total Georgia deaths from the selected cause.
Formula = [Number of cause-specific deaths in a county or district / Number of cause-specific deaths in Georgia] * 100

Percent of State Population

The percent of Georgia's population represented by the geography chosen.

Race

Per the Federal Office of Management and Budget, Directive 15 (1997),

• White is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa;
• Black or African-American is a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa;
• Asian is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand and Vietnam;
• American Indian/Alaska Native is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment;
• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands;
• Multiracial is a person declaring 2 or more of these races.

Note: Rates for years prior to year 2000 use population estimates for the denominator that adhere to a different Federal standard for race: White, Black, Asian or Other Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native. So, unlike years 2000 and after, Multiracial is not included. Also, Asian by itself is not available because it was grouped with Pacific Islander (After 1999 Asian is separate from Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander).

Rates using Census Population Estimates in the denominator are not calculated when a selected race is not available in the denominator, or zero.

Nevertheless, selections available in OASIS' Race query box reflect the 1997 Race classifications described above. Most of the numerators used in indicators in Oasis *do* have the year 2000 race selections. Therefore, selections of multiple years that span <2000 and 2000+ will return a *number (count)* for all race selections, but the *rates* may be limited by the change in racial classifications the federal government used as noted above. In these cases you will see NA₁ in the output cell (NA₁ therefore by definition will only show up in rates for the years before 2000).

In some cases, the numerator's race classification may be more precise, or up to date, than the Census population estimate counterpart used in the denominator. You may find that there are a number of births of a given race for a county/age-group selection, but no count of population estimated for the denominator. In such cases where the race selection was available for both the numerator and the denominator, but the denominator's estimate was zero, you will see a NA₂. If the numerator was greater than the denominator, but the denominator was > 0, you will see a NA₃ returned.

Rural

Any county having a population of less than 50,000 according to the United States decennial census of 2010 or any future such census (GA Code § 31-6-2 and 31-7-94.1).

Selected Causes Total

‘Selected Causes Total’ shows up in Web Query output tables that have been Stratified, and refers only to any subcategories of a given “parent” cause category. Please note that if a parent cause category is chosen in addition to subcategories, ‘Selected Causes Total’ refers only to the subcategories. Example:

‘Selected Causes Total’ refers only to Falls and Drowning, not the parent category External Causes of which Falls and Drowning are a part. The same principle applies to Selected Races, Selected Ethnicities, etc.

Sex-Specific rates

PLEASE NOTE: Unless a sex is specifically selected, Breast, Ovarian, Cervical, Uterine and Prostate and Testes cancers will have both males and females in the numerator and denominator. Note that usually (e.g. as reported in the Vital Statistics Report), Breast, Ovarian, Cervical and Uterine have only females in both the numerator and denominator, while Prostate and Testis have only males in both the numerator and denominator.

Socioeconomic (SES) Vulnerability

Socioeconomic (SES) Vulnerability refers to the socioeconomic status domain/subset of the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) 2020. Socioeconomic vulnerability ranks census tracts within Georgia on 5 factors: below 150% poverty, unemployed, housing cost burden, no high school diploma, and no health insurance. Percentile ranking values range from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater vulnerability/lower socioeconomic status. Quintiles of the percentile rankings were used to create class breaks (Very Low, Low, Average, High and Very High SES Vulnerability). Keep in mind that “Very Low” SES Vulnerability equates to a High SES status. For more information see https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/placeandhealth/svi/index.html. For data dictionary click here.

Standard Mortality Ratio (SMR)

Answers whether a local rate is statistically significantly different from the same rate for the State. SMR is a statistical calibrator of confidence level in the rates of populations. It is indicative whether a rate is within the "normal" range of estimated values or significantly higher/lower to such estimates. Rates are compared to those for Georgia as a whole. State rates are the standard against which local rates are compared, in order to forecast the number of likely events in a local area. It is a statistic indicating significance at the 95% confidence level.
Higher: Significantly higher ratio than expected based on the State ratio. Expected: No significant difference as compared to the State. Lower: Significantly lower ratio as compared with the State.
Note that an SMR is not shown for the state as a whole - an N/A will be shown instead. For counties, N/A means Not Applicable due to zero events.

Years of Potential Life Lost 75 (YPLL 75)

YPLL 75 represents the number of years of potential life lost due to death before age 75, as a measure of premature death. The YPLL 75 Rate is the years of potential life lost before age 75 that occur per 100,000 population less than 75 years of age. Formula = [Total Years of Life Lost before age 75 / Population less than 75 years old] * 100,000. YPLL can be age- and cause-specific. Rates that use Census Population Estimates in the denominator are unable to be calculated when the selected population is Unknown.This method of YPLL calculation uses the actual age at death and therefore is more precise as compared with the pre-defined age range methodology used by NCHS.

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