The International classification of diseases, abbreviated as ICD, is used to classify diseases and other health problems on many types of health and vital (essential to life) records, as well as death certificates.
As well as enabling the storage and retrieval of diagnostic information for clinical, epidemiological (which deals with the study of the causes, distribution, and control of disease in populations) and quality purposes, ICD records also form the basis for compiling national mortality and morbidity statistics by WHO Member States.