Instituto Nacional de Estatística - INE (Statistics Portugal).

Departamento de Estatísticas Sociais

manjos.campos@ine.pt

eduarda.gois@ine.pt

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".

CoD data are derived from death certificates. The information provided in the medical certificate of cause of death is mapped to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (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.

Definition according to the Commision Regulatin (EU) No 328/2011.The usual resident population based on legal or registered residence.

National definition used for stillbirths

A product of fertilisation whose death occurs before delivery or complete extraction from the mother's body, regardless of the duration of the pregnancy. Death is indicated by the fact that, after separation, the foetus has not breathed or shown any signs of life such as heartbeat, umbilical pulse or actual contractions of any muscles subject to voluntary action.
STILLBIRTH: A product of fertilisation whose death occurs before delivery or complete extraction from the mother's body, regardless of the duration of the pregnancy. 

The characteristics of collect:

Gestational age, weight.

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

Usual residence’ shall mean the place where a person normally spends the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absences for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friends and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage.

(i) those who have lived in their place of usual residence for a continuous period of at least 12 months before the reference date; or

(ii) those who arrived in their place of usual residence during the 12 months before the reference date with the intention of staying there for at least one year.

Where the circumstances described in point (i) or (ii) cannot be established, ‘usual residence’ shall mean the place of legal or registered residence.

The neonates of non-resident mothers are not considered residents in Portugal.

Definition according to the Commision Regulatin (EU) No 328/2011.The usual resident population based on legal or registered residence.

Deaths of non-residents are separately classified as deaths of residents abroad. Deaths of non-residents are included in the dataset.

Residents and non-residents who die in the country are included in data base.

Include residents dying abroad in national statistics, if we have the certificate of death.

Portugal and NUTS II

Time series available from 1994 onwards.

Not applicable.

The unit is number.

2021

CoD data was submitted 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 2007.

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 according to this regulation is submitted to Eurostat since reference year 2011.

National Organisations, institutes, researchers

There are national legislation on data confidentiality.

The Code of Conduct for European Statistics and the Law on the National Statistical System, define statistical secrecy as a basic and structuring element in the production of statistical information.

Frequency of less than 3 cases are considered as confidential.

Not available

Not applicable

In line with the national and community legal framework, the National Institute of Statistics disseminates statistics through various means of communication, including on its website.

Annual

www.ine.pt

https://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_destaques&DESTAQUESdest_boui=281091494&DESTAQUEStema=55538&DESTAQUESmodo=2

https://ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_publicacoes&PUBLICACOESpub_boui=257483090&PUBLICACOEStema=55538&PUBLICACOESmodo=2

www.ine.pt

www.ine.pt

Not available

Users do not have access to microdata due to data confidentiality.

Portal-data dissemination on line

Not available.

Not requested

Information for some concepts is not available.

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

Not available

Not available.

The users need annual statistical data, by cause ICD, by NUTS I, II and III and by sex.

Not available

The content requirements of relevant legislation, regulations and guidelines are met.

1. For mandatory variables: 100%

2. For voluntary variables:

3. For additional variables:

• External CoD

• Place of occurrence for external CoD

• Activity for external CoD

Not requested

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable. Data collection is from administrative sources.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

From data collection with reference year 2011 onwards, Eurostat asks for the submission of final data at national and regional level and related metadata for the year N at N+24 months, according to the Implementing Regulation (EC) No. 328/2011, Article 4.

No problems of comparability between regions of the country

Not applicable.

No issue that influences the comparability over time

1980-2021

No discrepency

Not applicable, only annual data are available.

Not applicable.

No inconsistencies.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable.

INE,Statisticas of causes of deaths.

Annual.

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

Table on certification (Percentage)

For the stillbirths and Neonatal we use separate certificate of death.

There are the Stillbirths and Neonatal certificates.

For neonatal deaths the certificate is the same for the stillbirths.

No procedures for checking and validating

We check potencial inconsistency between ICD codes and gender and age of deceased.

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):

 - Procedures of WHO guides

Description of the measures taken in order to solve detected errors:

To detect errors or inconsistencies in the death certificate, there is another source of data collection. It is the collection of information on deaths through the civil registry offices.

Coding performed by a certifier:

ICD-10

Estimation of the percentage of autopsy from which information is available for coding:

No estimation 

Description of double coding exercises and rate of codification errors for underlying cause of death:

not available

ICD codes for the underlying cause (% of the Total)

Unknown country/region (%) for residents and non-residents who died in the country

Not applicable

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.