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Information Sheet
May 2009
National Vital Statistics System
Page Content
About NCHS National Vital Statistics System
National Death Index
Examples of NVSS Data
Challenges and Future Opportunities
About NCHS
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the nation's principal health statistics agency, providing data to identify and address health issues. NCHS compiles statistical information to help guide public health and health policy decisions.
Collaborating with other public and private health partners, NCHS employs a variety of data collection mechanisms to obtain accurate information from multiple sources. This process provides a broad perspective to help us understand the population's health, influences on health, and health outcomes.
National Vital Statistics System
The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) provides the nation's official vital statistics data based on the collection and registration of birth and death events at the state and local level. The NVSS provides the most complete and continuous data available to public health officials at the national, state and local levels, and in the private sector.
Vital statistics are a critical component of our national health information system, allowing us to monitor progress toward achieving important health goals.
Examples of NVSS data:
- Teen births and birth rates
- Prenatal care and birth weight
- Risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes
- Infant mortality rates
- Leading causes of death
- Life expectancy
National Death Index
The National Death Index (NDI) is a component of the NVSS, a central computerized index of death record information compiled from state data. The NCHS, in collaboration with state offices, established the NDI as a resource to facilitate epidemiological follow-up studies, and allow researchers to verify death for individuals under study.
Examples of NVSS Data
The birth rate for U.S. teenagers aged 15-19 years of age rose again in 2007 by about 1 percent, to 42.5 births per 1,000. Birth rates for teenagers had been declining steadily since the 1991 peak and fell 34 percent between 1991 and 2005, before the trend was interrupted in 2006.
Among race and Hispanic origin groups, the largest single-year increase was reported for American Indian or Alaska Native teenagers, whose overall rate rose 7 percent during 2006-2007 to 59.0 births per 1,000. The rates for non-Hispanic white and black teenagers and Asian Pacific Islander teenagers each increased 1 to 2 percent. Only the rate for Hispanic teenagers declined in 2007, to 81.7 per 1,000, or 2 percent less than in 2006.
Teen births have important health implications. Teenagers are least likely to receive timely prenatal care, more likely to smoke when pregnant, and more likely to have a low birthweight infant.
Source: Births: Preliminary Data for 2007, National Vital Statistics Reports
Vol. 57 No. 12 National Center for Health Statistics 2009.
Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2006, National Vital Statistics Report Vol. 57, No. 14:
National Center for Health Statistics. 2009.
- In 2006, life expectancy at birth was 77.7 years for all races, 78.2 years for whites, and 73.2 years for blacks.
- In 2006, white females continued to have the highest life expectancy at birth (80.6 years), followed by black females (76.5 years), white males (75.7 years), and black males (69.7 years).
Other findings include:
- In 2006, the age-adjusted death rates declined significantly for 10 of the 15 leading causes of death. The data show reductions in deaths due to heart disease (5.2 percent) and cancer (1.7 percent). Deaths from these two diseases accounted for 49 percent of all deaths in 2006.
- The age-adjusted death rate decreased significantly between 2005-2006 for several other causes including Influenza and Pneumonia (12.3 percent), stroke (6.4 percent), chronic lower respiratory diseases (6.3 percent), hypertension (6.3 percent), and diabetes (5.3 percent).
- The infant mortality rate for all races was 6.69 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006. This is a 2.6 percent decrease from the rate in 2005.
- The infant mortality rate for Hispanic infants is not statistically different from the rate for non-Hispanic white infants. In contrast, the rate for non-Hispanic black infants is more than double the rate for non-Hispanic white infants.
- Preliminary data show that after climbing by about 20 percent since 1990, rates of preterm and low birthweight declined slightly for 2007. Nearly one-third of all births were cesarean deliveries in 2007, a 50 percent increase over 1996.
- The remarkable rise in multiple births may have abated. The twin birth rate has been unchanged for two years in a row; the rate of triplet and higher order multiple births has been trending slightly downward since peaking in 1998.
- Births to unmarried women have climbed steeply since 2002 following relatively stable levels from the mid 1990s.
Challenges and Future Opportunities
- Modernize the technology infrastructure of the nation’s vital statistics system, moving states from outdated systems to web-based systems integrated with other public health information systems, and re-engineering the NCHS internal vital statistics processing system. This technology will allow for rapid compilation and use of these critical data sources, as well as for improved quality.
- Following the modernization of the technology infrastructure to improve timeliness, the vital statistics system needs to more effectively contribute to the public health surveillance of disease outbreaks at the community, state and national levels.
Page Last Modified: November 18, 2009
Data Source: CDC/National Center for Health Statistics
National Center for Health
Statistics
3311 Toledo Road
Hyattsville, MD 20782
Phone:
1-800-232-4636
nchsquery@cdc.gov
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30333, U.S.A
Tel: (404) 639-3311 / Public Inquiries: (404) 639-3534 / (800) 311-3435