Statistics Austria

Directorate Social Statistics

Statistics Austria

Directorate Social Statistics

Guglgasse 13

1110 Wien

Data on causes of death (COD) provide information on mortality patterns and form a major element of public health information.

COD data refer to the underlying cause which - according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) - is "the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury".

Causes of death are classified by the 86 causes of the "European shortlist" of causes of death. This shortlist is based on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD).

COD data are derived from death certificates. The medical certification of death is an obligation in all Member States. Countries code the information provided in the medical certificate of cause of death into ICD codes according to the rules specified in the ICD.

Eurostat's CoD statistics build on standards set out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD).

The regional breakdown is based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS 2).

Classification and updates applied by years

Public Health

Concepts and definitions are described in the Commission regulation (EU) No 328/2011 in articles 2 and 3.

The place of usual residence is approximated by the place of main registered main residence. In Austria only people registered with a main residence for 3 months or more are collected; The Austrian definition is based on the Recommendations on Statistics of International Migration from the United Nations (Statistical Papers No. 58, Rev. 1. 1998)

The national definition used for stillbirths is the WHO-definition: 500 grams or more and no signs of life.

The characteristics  collected are: gestational age, weight, crown-heel lenght.

The statistical units are the deceased persons and the stillborns, respectively.

Residents, non-residents and stillbirths.

Neonatals of non-resident mothers are not considered as residents.

Data of non-residents are submitted to ESTAT. They are also stored in the national database but not published.

Residents dying abroad are published, the cause of death is coded with R99.

Austrian territory

Time series available from 1994 onwards.

Not applicable.

The unit is an absolute number.

2022

Countries submitted data to Eurostat on the basis of a gentleman's agreement established in the framework Eurostat's Working Group on "Public Health Statistics" until data with reference year 2010. The first data submitted according to the Regulation (EU) No 328/2011 is data with reference year 2011.
A Regulation on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work (EC) No 1338/2008 was signed by the European Parliament and the Council on 16 December 2008. This Regulation is the framework of the data collection on the domain.
Within the context of this framework Regulation, a Regulation on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work, as regards statistics on causes of death (EU) No 328/2011 was signed by the European Parliament and the Council on 5 April 2011.

COD-data are shared with Eurostat, WHO, National Health Institutions, Scientific Resarchs Institutes, Media and the broad public.

The Law on Personal Data Protection provides the legal basis for confidentiality of data in the Cause of Death Registry.

All age groups showing a total mortality of less than 4 cases are considered as confidential. 

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

At the moment the data is fully plausible, it will be published immediately in a press release and on our homepage: https://www.statistik.at/medien/pressemitteilungen

Annual.

News releases on-line: https://www.statistik.at/medien/veroeffentlichungskalender

Publications online: https://www.statistik.at/en/statistics/population-and-society/population/deaths/causes-of-death

Please consult free data on-line (https://www.statistik.at/en/databases/statcube-statistical-database).

Please consult free data on-line (https://statcube.at/statistik.at/ext/statcube/jsf/terms.xhtml?r=%2Fstatistik.at%2Fext%2Fstatcube%2Fopendatabase?id%3Ddegestorbene_ext) or refer to contact details.

Please consult free data on-line (https://statcube.at/statistik.at/ext/statcube/jsf/terms.xhtml?r=%2Fstatistik.at%2Fext%2Fstatcube%2Fopendatabase?id%3Ddegestorbene_ext) or refer to contact details.

Please consult free data on-line (https://www.statistik.at/en/databases/statcube-statistical-database) or refer to contact details.

Please consult free data on-line (https://statcube.at/statistik.at/ext/statcube/jsf/terms.xhtml?r=%2Fstatistik.at%2Fext%2Fstatcube%2Fopendatabase?id%3Ddegestorbene_ext) or refer to contact details.

Documents for COD are available in CIRCABC, Causes of Death section.

Please consult free data on-line (https://statcube.at/statistik.at/ext/statcube/jsf/terms.xhtml?r=%2Fstatistik.at%2Fext%2Fstatcube%2Fopendatabase?id%3Ddegestorbene_ext) or refer to contact details.

The Austrian Cause of Death Registry has fully implemented the IRIS system, with its associated rules and guidelines for selection of underlying cause of death, for routine coding.

If the medical data is incomplete additional information is requested from the institution where the certificate was issued. 

The quality management is documented in the handbook of quality (only in german, summary in english). Please look under "Dokumentationen": https://www.statistik.at/statistiken/bevoelkerung-und-soziales/bevoelkerung/gestorbene/todesursachen

The causes of death data are based on a regulation, which defines scope, definitions of variables and characteristics of the data.

The Austrian Cause of Death Registry has fully implemented the IRIS system, with its associated rules and guidelines for selection of underlying cause of death, for routine coding.

If the medical data is incomplete additional information is requested from the institution where the certificate was issued. 

Not available.

The Austrian Cause of Death Registry is needed for the following purposes:

1. Monitoring causes of death over time
2. Preparation of national, regional and local statistics related to causes of death
3. Research
4. Planning, quality assurance and quality impovement in the Health and Care Services

Not available.

All compulsory variables are available.

1. For mandatory variables: 100%

2. For voluntary variables:-

3. For additional variables:

• External CoD 100%
• Place of occurrence for external CoD 100%
• Activity for external CoD -

High accuracy for death occurred in Austria, legal obligation to provide a death certificate for every death that occurred in Austria. The statistic has a high quality, because the most important information comes from the civil registries which have high accuracy and reliability due to the nature of their documentation system. The quality of mortality statistics thus depends directly on the quality of the information given by the doctors. This depends on the amount of the medical information that the certifying doctor has. In most cases clinical information is used to describe death. In less than 10% of the cases an autopsy is done.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable.

From data collection with reference year 2011 onwards, Eurostat asks for the submission of final data for the year N at N+24 months.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The data for the reference year 2020 have been delivered in September 2022.

The data are comparable for all territorial regions in the country. The process of collecting, coding and transmission of the data is the same for all regions.

Not applicable.

Coding procedures changed over time in Austria:

• Adaptation to WHO certificate in 2004
• ICD versions: Since the 2016 reporting year (with the implementation of the international electronic coding program IRIS) the 2013 version of ICD-10 has been used. The version 1.3 of ICD-10 used prior to this was recoded accordingly in order to be able to offer a time series that is retroactively comparable up to the year 2002. For periods up to and including 2001, the following ICD revisions apply: ICD-9 (1980-2001), ICD-8 (1969-1979), ICD-7 (1959-1968), ICD-6 (1953-1958), ICD-5 (previous to 1953).
• automatic coding systems : IRIS from 2015 (partly) until nowadays (full use since 2019)

The impact of formal and technical changes in Cause of Death statistics cannot be measured.

Considering evolution of ICD versions in use the comparable time series start at 2002 up to now (ICD 10 Version 2013).

For the European short list the comparable time series start at 1970 up to now.

The Causes of death data are compared with the data on the population. Comparisons between hospital discharge records and cause of death statistics are not possible due to the fact that matching these data is not allowed by law.

Not applicable, only annual data are available.

Not applicable.

Since 2002, the Central Register of supplies (ZMR) quarterly stock figures and changing masses, which are widely adopted in an anonymous population register. Since then inconsistencies are reported as correction of population data.

The cost and burden of the data collection is reduced by using validation and dissemination IT tools.

Not applicable.

There is no systematic revision of previous year data. 

Not applicable.

In 2010, the Austrian government decided to create a central civil registry (Zentrales Personenstandsregister - ZPR) in order to simplify related administrative procedures. This registry started operations in November 2014. The use of the ZPR is compulsory for civil registration offices nationwide. With the introduction of the ZPR, the opportunity was taken to envisage ways of also transmitting electronic information on the causes of death as provided by hospitals or death-certifying physicians. According to the new civil registration law, with the implementation of the ZPR hospitals and death-certifying physicians outside hospitals are obliged to send death certificates electronically (not only demographic information, but also the medical part) unless they lack the necessary technical equipment. Death-certifying physicians outside hospitals also have to transmit data electronically unless they lack the necessary technical equipment.

Data are collected continously since the implementation of the ZPR.

In Austria, unicausal cause-of-death statistics is done, i.e. the underlying cause of death is selected from the data on the death certificate and only this is coded.
This is done according to the international regulations of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Death certificate is the basis for the Austrian cause of death statistics. In order to contribute to the improvement and harmonization of international Cause of Death statistics, the Austrian certificate was adapted to the specifications and recommendations of the WHO and the European Commission as of March 3, 2004. All information provided on the certificate is subject to statistical secrecy (Bundesstatistikgesetz 2000, § 17) and will not be disclosed to survivors, insurance companies or administrative institutions. The death certificate is handed over by the physician (or the mortician) to the registry offices, which, after registering the death, forward it to Statistics Austria. The training in certification is part of the medical education. Based on the information on the certificate, the causes of death are determined using the "International Statistical Classification of Diseases and related health problems 10th revision" (ICD 10). Using special coding guidelines, the underlying condition that is included in the statistics is determined by specially trained staff at STATISTIK AUSTRIA. The coders are trained on an ongoing basis. If the information on the death certificate is unclear, the doctors who filled it out are contacted. If an autopsy was performed, the results are queried and included in the cause of death statistics.

Table on certification (Percentage)

For stillbirths there is a different death certificate.

There is no certificate for neonatal deaths; for neonatal deaths the data of the certificate of birth and the data of the certificate of death are merged.

Since 2009 all deaths of Austrian residents outside Austria are included in the publications. These cases are coded with ICD-Code R99.

Since the start of the ZPR (Zentrales Personenstandsregister) the civil registration system is centralized and the personal information of a dead person will be sent electronically. As the ZPR is based on the ZMR (Zentrales Melderegister) the information in both systems will adjust continously.

Description of coding procedure (central level, distributed among other bodies, etc.): central level

Description of the procedures to detect errors (i.e.errors such as potential inconsistency in the death certificate or error due to mistake when filling the deaths certificates): contacting the doctor when inconsistencies are seen during the coding process

Description of the measures taken in order to solve detected errors: reject within the automatic coding system, then contacting the doctor

Coding performed by a certifier: no, doctors have to fill in the text

Estimation of the percentage of autopsy from which information is available for coding at the stage of arrival of the certificate: nine out of death certificates have all informations ready at first arrival, the rest is delivered ongoing up to the finalisation of the yearly data

Description of double coding exercises and rate of codification errors for underlying cause of death: there is no double coding performed since the automated coding system is in place; all corona cases are reviewed again by the head coder after coding.

Unspecified CoD codes for the underlying cause (% of the Total)

In 2014 electronic registration started and more non-resident certificates came in, nevertheless a high percentage of unknown recidencies are still there.

Since 2009 all deaths of Austrian residents outside Austria are included in the publications. These cases are coded with ICD-Code R99.

Since the start of the ZPR (Zentrales Personenstandsregister) the civil registration system is centralized and the personal information of a dead person will be sent electronically. As the ZPR is based on the ZMR (Zentrales Melderegister) the information in both systems will adjust continously.

ICD-Codes are aggregated according to the Eurostat-short-list of causes of death groups.

Not applicable.

On data entry level several plausibility tests on each variable are performed, mainly on the ICD-Codes. The ICD-Codes are tested according to the ICD-Version used, the sex and age of the deceased. Additionall tests are done on the ICD-Codes of external causes. If errors occur, the cases are checked by the head coder and, if necessary, changed by the project management.

Not applicable.

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