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Previously the microdata for each year of the Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set, included in the following tables, consisted of three separate data files. The numerator/denominator set referred to below can be used to compute infant mortality rates.

  1. Linked Deaths - The numerator files include deaths to all infants in that same calendar year for which the death certificate can be linked to a birth certificate in the denominator file.
  2. Linked Births - The denominator files contain all births occurring in a given calendar year.
  3. Unlinked Deaths - The unlinked files include death certificate information for all the infant deaths that cannot be linked to a birth in the corresponding birth file.

Datasets located below are also separated into two sections:

  • U.S. Data Files - Prior to 1972, data are based on a 50-percent sample of birth certificates from all States. Beginning in 1972, data are based on a 100-percent sample of birth certificates from some states and on a 50-percent sample from the remaining States. The number of States from which 100 percent of the records are used has increased from 6 in 1972 to all States and the District of Columbia in 1985.
  • U.S. Territory Data - Birth data from the U.S. Territories Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are available on a separate file beginning in 1994. In 1998, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas were added to the U.S. Territories files.

Demographic data include variables such as date of birth, age and educational attainment of parents, marital status, live-birth order, race, sex, and geographic area. Health data include items such as birth weight, gestation, prenatal care, attendant at birth, and Apgar score. Geographic data includes state, county, and city of mother's residence and state and county of the place of birth. City and county data are available only for areas with a population of 250,000 or more. Refer to the documentation below for more detail.

Other birth data available are Birth Cohort Linked Birth and Infant Death Data, Natality Data, as part of the Perinatal Mortality Data, and Matched Multiple Births Data, 1995-1998. After 1999, the Linked Birth/Infant Death data is included as part of the Perinatal Mortality Data set.

SEER provides helpful U.S. Population data for 1969 on.

NBER affiliates can access this and other data through the NBER computing system.  Files can be located using the directory path of each download link replacing "https://data.nber.org/" with  "/homes/data/". For example, these nvss/linkpeco/ and the older linkpe datasets can be found under "/homes/data/nvss/linkpeco/" and "/homes/data/linkpe/" on the internal NBER computer cluster. For more information on the data available on the internal server see NBER Internal Data Collection page.

    U.S. Data Files - Raw Format

    Various file types for Linked Deaths, Linked Births, and Unlinked Deaths data below are classified according to: [1] = source, [2] = sas , [3] = stata, [4] = csv

     
    Year Data Guide Linked Deaths (Numerator files) Linked Births (Denominator files) Unlinked Deaths
    1995 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1996 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1997 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1998 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1999 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2000 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2001 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2002 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2003 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2004 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2005 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2006 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2007 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2008 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2009 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2010 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2011 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2012 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2013 .zip pdf [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2014 .zip pdf - - -
    2015 .zip pdf - - -
    2016 .zip pdf - - -
    2017 .zip pdf - -  

    U.S. Data Files - NBER Format

    These SAS, Stata, and SPSS files were created by data@nber.org at the NBER based on the source data above to make access to the NCHS Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data easier to use.

     
    Year Linked Deaths (Numerator files) Linked Births (Denominator files) Unlinked Deaths
    1995 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1996 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1997 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1998 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1999 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2000 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2001 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2002 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2003 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2004 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2005 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2006 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2007 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2008 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2009 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2010 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2011 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2012 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2013 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2014 .zip .zip -
    2015 .zip .zip -
    2016 .zip .zip -
    2017 .zip .zip -

     

    U.S. Territory Data Files - Raw Format

    Various file types for Linked Deaths, Linked Births, and Unlinked Deaths data below are classified according to: [1] = source, [2] = sas , [3] = stata, [4] = csv

    Year Data Linked Deaths (Numerator files) Linked Births (Denominator files) Unlinked Deaths
    1995 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1996 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1997 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1998 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    1999 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2000 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2001 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2002 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2003 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2004 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2005 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2006 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2007 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2008 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2009 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2010 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2011 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2012 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2013 .zip [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4] [1],[2],[3],[4]
    2014 .zip - - -
    2015 .zip - - -
    2016 .zip - - -
    2017 .zip - - -

    U.S. Territory Data Files - NBER Format

    These SAS, Stata, and SPSS files were created by data@nber.org at the NBER based on the source data above to make access to the NCHS Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data easier to use.

    Year Linked Deaths (Numerator files) Linked Births (Denominator files) Unlinked Deaths
    1995 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1996 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1997 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1998 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    1999 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2000 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2001 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2002 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2003 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2004 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2005 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2006 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2007 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2008 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2009 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2010 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2011 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2012 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2013 sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps sas, do, dct, sps
    2014 .zip .zip -
    2015 .zip .zip -
    2016 .zip .zip -
    2017 .zip .zip -

    Standard Death Certificate - sdc

    Standard Birth Certificate - sbc49-55, sbc56-67, sbc68-77, sbc78-88, sbc89-02, sbc03

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