Perinatal Mortality Data

Microdata for the United States and its Territories are included on separate files. The data for each set of the Perinatal Mortality Data Set consists of three separate data files.

• Linked Deaths - The numerator file includes perinatal deaths which could be linked to a live birth.
• Linked Births - The denominator file contains the live birth file.
• Unlinked Deaths - The unlinked file contains information from the death certificate for all perinatal deaths which could not be linked to a corresponding birth certificate. 

The death data in both the numerator and unlinked files include the deaths of infants less than one year of age who died in the same calendar year as the birth data, regardless of the calendar year of their birth. The variable OUTCOME can be used to distinguish between infant deaths and fetal deaths.

Datasets located below are 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 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 complications of labor and delivery. 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.

Other birth data available are Natality Data, Birth Cohort Linked Birth/Infant Death Data, and Matched Multiple Birth Data, 1995-1997.

CDC Wonder is a data extraction tool that can produce tables with counts of births occurring for select recent years within the United States to U.S. residents and non-residents. Counts can be obtained by state, county, child's gender and weight, maternal race, maternal age, maternal education, gestation period, prenatal care, and birth plurality.

Note: The use of this data signifies agreement with NCHS' data use rules. Works referring to the datasets or codebooks should contain a citation to NCHS. Published material derived from this data should include a citation such as this at the bottom of the table: "Source: National Center for Health Statistics (span of years used)"

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

NBER internal users can access the data from a UNIX shell at /homes/data/perinatal or on an NBER PC via Network Neighborhood --> NBER --> home --> data --> perinatal

U.S.  Data Files - Linked Birth and Perinatal Mortality Data 

U.S. Territory Data Files - Linked Birth and Perinatal Mortality Data

GENERAL DOCUMENTATION

• Definition of Live Birth - defnat
• History -- Natality - hisnat
• Sources of Data -- Natality Statistics - scenat
• Classification of Data -- Natality - clsnat
• Quality of Data -- Natality - quanat
• Computation of Rates and Other Measures -- Natality - cmpnat
• References -- Natality - refnat
• Addendum to Technical Appendix -- Natality - addmort, addend1, addend2
• Tables 4-1, 4-2, and 4-3 - tables
• Standard Death Certificate - sdc
• Standard Birth Certificates - sbc49-55, sbc56-67, sbc68-77, sbc78-88, sbc89-02, sbc03

MULTI-YEAR DOCUMENTATION