Costa Rica National Institute of Statistics and Censuses Department of Continuous Statistics Demographic Statistics Unit 2010 Death Register Study Documentation July 28, 2015 Metadata Production Metadata Producer(s) Olga Martha Araya Umaña (OMAU), INEC, Demographic Statistics Unit Coordinator Production Date July 28, 2012 Version Identification CRI-INEC-DEF 2010 Table of Contents Overview............................................................................................................................................................. 4 Scope & Coverage.............................................................................................................................................. 4 Producers & Sponsors.........................................................................................................................................5 Data Collection....................................................................................................................................................5 Data Processing & Appraisal..............................................................................................................................6 Accessibility........................................................................................................................................................ 7 Rights & Disclaimer........................................................................................................................................... 8 Files Description................................................................................................................................................. 9 Deaths 2010.................................................................................................................................... 9 Variables List.................................................................................................................................................... 10 Deaths 2010.................................................................................................................................. 10 Variables Description........................................................................................................................................ 12 Deaths 2010................................................................................................................................... 13 Death register 2010 - Overview Death Register 2010 (DEF 2010) Overview Type Administrative registers Identification CRI-DEF-2010 Series The registration of death statistics was, at its origin, a duty performed independently by ecclesiastical authorities, who registered baptisms, deaths and marriages. The first registers date back to 1594. The flow of information is continuously undergoing coordination advancements to improve the exchange of information between this institution’s Demographic Statistics Unit and the Ministry of Health, the Supreme Electoral Body and the Costa Rican Social Security Administration. Abstract In Costa Rica, the gathering and compiling of death statistics is the duty of the Demographic Statistics Unit, which – in turn – forms part of the Department of Continuous Statistics of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC by its acronym in Spanish). Death statistics arise from the data systematically collected from death certificates, whose registration is the duty of the Civil Register of Costa Rica. It is here that the vital statistics and legal acts concerning marital statuses are registered. To this end, a three-part form has been put into effect, which the auxiliary registrar must duly fill in. The vital statistics currently processed by the INEC are: births, deaths, fetal deaths, and marriages. The data are used both nationally and internationally. Due to the fact that we, as a country, historically fall behind on death statistics, all the deaths that have occurred over the last 10 years are included, for operational purposes, in a given year’s statistics, including those that occurred during the calendar year for which the statistics are being compiled. In this way, in 2010, all the deaths that occurred from 2001 to 2010, but were registered in the year 2010, were included. It has been demonstrated that these historical inconsistencies are compensated, year after year, on the following year; therefore, it is expected that what was not registered in 2010 will be included in the 2011 registers, and this data will be approximately equal to what was not registered in 2009 but was included in the 2010 registers, and so on for all the other years. Late registrations are published obeying the year in which the death occurred. Kind of Data Administrative registers (adm) Unit of Analysis Deaths occurring and/or registered in 2010. Scope & Coverage Scope Personal data of the deceased: name, nationality, sex, last marital status, age, date of death and primary residence. Cause of death: this variable is composed of 4 subsections, divided into two parts. The first part determines the immediate causes preceding the death. The second part investigates into other causes that contributed to the death, but were NOT directly related to the sickness or condition that led to it. The cause recorded by INEC is denominated the “basic cause.” - 4 - Death register 2010 - Overview Place and date of death: refers to the geographic location where the death occurred, taking into account the province, canton and district. Also registered is the day, month and year of the death. Keywords Death, Cause, Autopsy, Assistance, Occurrence, Hospital, Residence Topics Accidents and damages [8.1], Medication, drug, alcohol or tobacco abuse. [8.3], Youth [12.10], Children [12.1], Senior citizens [12.2], Mortality and morbidity [14.4], Cause of death Time Period(s) 2010 Countries Costa Rica Geographic Coverage Province Canton District Urban Rural Regionalization of the INEC Regionalization of the Ministry of Health Universe All the deaths that occurred and were registered nationwide in 2010. Producers & Sponsors Primary National Institute of Statistics and Censuses Investigator(s) Department of Continuous Statistics Demographic Statistics Unit Other Producer(s) Supreme Electoral Body (TSE by its acronym in Spanish); Government, Primary source of information; Ministry of Health (MS by its acronym in Spanish); Government , Quality control; Costa Rican Social Security Administration (CCSS by its acronym in Spanish); Government, Quality Control Funding Agency/ies Ministry of Finance, Public sector budget Data Collection Data Collection Dates Annual: start 01-01-2010 Annual: end 12-31-2010 Time Period(s) Annual: start 01-01-2010 Annual: end 12-31-2010 Data Collection Mode Administrative registers - 5 - Data Collection Notes The auxiliary registrars responsible for death declarations are employees of the health centers in which the deaths occurred. To this end, a three-part form has been put into effect, which these officials must fill out according to the instructions written for each one of the spaces comprising the death certificate. Those deaths that did not occur in a hospital center are registered in the offices of the Civil Register, or in the institutions responsible for providing the burial service. The original is sent to the Registration Department of the Civil Register; the first copy of the certificate is for the INEC, the second is for the relatives of the deceased. Once a week, personnel from the unit go to the central offices of the Civil Register to gather all the certificates that have been sent by the registrars during the previous week, and proceed to classify them by month and province. Registers are kept during this archiving process, with a list of all the institutions authorized to draft birth certificates, in order to mitigate and control monthly recording omissions. Once the registers are organized and classified by province and month, a manual count is performed to quantify the volume and distribution of the death certificates that need to be registered the following week. Once the registers are organized and counted, the consistency checking and data encoding stage begins. Codes already established by international manuals and directives are used. After the consistency checking and data encoding stage is finalized, the data entry stage begins. This stage commences with the manual numbering of the certificates; once they are numbered, the data is entered into a program developed with Visual Basic 6 and Visual Studio .NET programming languages, that – in turn – records said data in a database in SQL Server 2008. Questionnaires A death certificate is an official declaration by which the Civil Register of Costa Rica registers the death of each person who dies on Costa Rican soil, regardless of whether the deceased is a Costa Rican citizen or a foreigner. A death certificate is considered a legal document, and is used for legal and demographic purposes. It is subdivided into six modules. The information that it contains is subdivided in the following manner: Personal information of the deceased Cause of death Place and date of death Date of declaration Data Collector(s) Registrars and Auxiliary Registrars of the Supreme Electoral Body (TSE) Registrars and Auxiliary Registrars of Hospitals and Hospital Institutions Registrars and Auxiliary Registrars of the Civil Guard and the Ministry of Public Safety Supervision Direct supervision is not required, neither by the Supreme Electoral Body (TSE) nor by