Multiple Cause Mortality - More Info

MultiCod is the unique Vitalnet system for analyzing multiple cause mortality data, and making better use of the wealth of information available on the death certificate.

Makes fuller use of data - MultiCod access all causes listed on the death certificate, not just the underlying cause. This is especially useful for assessing and studying the increasing impact of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, lung disease and other chronic diseases in our aging population.

New way of looking at data - Multiple cause data give a different, and equally valid, picture of the health of the community. Historically, the data have not been used much, because of the great technical difficult in analyzing the data. MultiCod changes that.

Only system for multiple cause - MultiCod produces correct results for multiple cause data. No other system has the capability for this. For example, to compare the rate for heart disease with the rate for diabetes, using multiple cause data.

New multiple cause outcomes - The program calculates death rates, age-adjusted death rates, leading causes, YPLL and other statistics based on any mention on the death certificate. MultiCod also produces the following statistics unique to multiple cause data analysis:

• Average causes per death: A useful measure of comorbidity.
• Percent deaths with one cause: Also useful for evaluating comorbidity.

Vitalnet multiple-cause analyses also apply to hospital discharge data (not shown).

A few examples of multiple-cause mortality analysis:

• Leading causes - underlying cause analysis
• Leading causes - multiple cause analysis
• Highest average (mean) causes per death (high comorbidity)
• Highest percent deaths with one cause (low comorbidity)