PHIT Death Data Caveats

Caveats for the death data available in PHIT

Caveats

Massachusetts Deaths Caveats – Changes Between 2013 and 2014 Data Years

 

The Vitals Information Partnership (VIP) system is designed to streamline and integrate vital event registration, securely, across the Commonwealth. In September 2014, the death application was launched in VIP. At this time, new variables were added and changes were made to variable coding for some historical variables. Please see below a summary of the changes that took place between the 2013 and 2014 death files. Comparisons between data collected before 2014 and data collected 2014 and onward should be interpreted with caution.

 

Place of Death

 

Nursing home and assisted living facility or rest home were not available for all observations prior to 2015. In earlier years, these would have been coded as Other.

 

On VIP, response options for place of death include:

  • Hospital-Inpatient
  • Hospital-ER/Outpatient
  • Hospital-Dead on Arrival (DOA)
  • Decedent’s Residence
  • Hospice
  • Nursing Home
  • Assisted Living Facility or Rest Home
  • Other
  • Unknown

 

On pre-VIP death files, response options for place of death included:

  • Hospital-Inpatient
  • Hospital-ER/Outpatient
  • Hospital-Dead on Arrival (DOA)
  • Hospital-Hospital Status Unknown
  • Decedent’s Residence
  • Nursing Home
  • Other
  • Not Classifiable

 

For PHIT, the pre-VIP response options were matched to the VIP response options as follow:

 

Place of Death

VIP

Pre-VIP

Hospital, Inpatient

Hospital, Inpatient

Hospital, ER/Outpatient

Hospital, ER/Outpatient

Hospital, DOA

Hospital, DOA

Decedent’s Residence

Decedent’s Residence

Hospice

No match, not a possible response

Nursing Home

Nursing Home

Assisted Living Facility or Rest Home

 

No match, not a possible response

Other

Other

Unknown

Hospital-Hospital Status Unknown, Not Classifiable

 

Manner of Death

 

Therapeutic complication was not available for all observations prior to 2015. In earlier years, these would have been coded as a natural cause of death if no injury information was also provided and an accidental cause of death if injury information was provided.

 

On VIP, response options for manner of death include:

  • Natural
  • Accident
  • Suicide
  • Homicide
  • Pending Investigation
  • Could Not be Determined
  • Therapeutic Complication
  • Other

 

On pre-VIP death files, response options for manner of death included:

  • Natural
  • Accident
  • Suicide
  • Homicide
  • Pending Investigation
  • Could Not be Determined
  • Not Classifiable

 

For PHIT, the pre-VIP response options were matched to the VIP response options as follow:

 

Manner of Death

VIP

Pre-VIP

Natural

Natural

Accident

Accident

Suicide

Suicide

Homicide

Homicide

Pending investigation

Pending investigation

Could not be determined

Could not be determined

Therapeutic complication

No match, not a possible response

Other

Not classifiable

 

Decedent’s Education

 

Certificate, Refused/Not Obtainable, and Special Education were not available for all observations prior to 2015.

 

On VIP, response options for decedent’s education include:

  • 8th grade or less
  • 9-12 grade, no diploma
  • High school graduate or GED completed
  • Some college credit, but no degree
  • Certificate
  • Associate degree
  • Bachelor’s degree
  • Master’s degree
  • Doctorate or professional degree
  • Unknown
  • Refused/not obtainable
  • Special education

 

On pre-VIP death files, response options for decedent’s education included:

  • Elementary/Secondary: 00-12
  • College: 13-17
    • 13=1 year
    • 14=2 years
    • 15=3 years
    • 16=4 years
    • 17=5+ years
  • Not Classifiable: 99

 

For PHIT, the pre-VIP response options were matched to the VIP response options as follow:

 

 

VIP

Pre-VIP

8th grade or less

00-08

9-12 grade, no diploma

09-11

High school graduate or GED completed

12

Some college credit, but no degree

13, 15

Certificate

No match, not a possible response

Associate degree

14

Bachelor’s degree

16

Master’s degree

17

Doctorate or professional degree

17 with occupation like lawyer, attorney, doctor, or physician

Unknown

99

Refused/not obtainable

No match, not a possible response

Special education

No match, not a possible response

 

Decedent’s Race

 

  • Prior to the implementation of VIP, families of decedents began to report race separately from ethnicity and can now choose more than one race from standard checkbox lists. Previously, families wrote free-form responses in a single field that were often difficult to categorize and may have resulted in some misclassifications. While the new method improves accuracy, an algorithm must still be used to analyze multiple race responses for the categorical race variable provided in PHIT to choose the most appropriate standard race category from among these options: White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Some Other Race, Unknown. Because Hispanic ethnicity was captured as a race in the pre-2014 data, these decedents have been classified as Unknown race in the categorical race variable for PHIT.
  • RACE12 (Guamanian or Chamorro) and RACE13 (Samoan) were not available for all observations prior to 2015.
  • All non-classifiable races (RACE=99) were categorized as RACE_NOT_OBT, so RACE_REFUSED and RACE_UNK will not be a possible response in the pre-2014 data.

 

VIP

Pre-VIP

American Indian/Alaska Native/Native American

Race is Indian [American, Alaska, Canadian, and Mexican Indian, Eskimo and Aleut]

Asian

Race is Chinese, Japanese, Laotian, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian

Black

Race is Black

Hispanic/Latino/Black

Race is Black and Hispanic ethnicity is Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Other Central American, South American, Mexican, Other and Unknown Hispanic

Hispanic/Latino/Other

Race is Hispanic or Hispanic ethnicity is Other and Unknown Hispanic

Hispanic/Latino/White

Race is White and Hispanic ethnicity is Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Other Central American, South American, Mexican, Other and Unknown Hispanic

Native Hawaiian

Race is Hawaiian

Samoan

No match, not a possible response

White

Race is White [Includes Mexican, Puerto Rican, and other Caucasian]

Other Pacific Islander

Race is Other Asian or Pacific Islander

Specify Other Hispanic/Latino

Race is Hispanic or Hispanic ethnicity is Other and Unknown Hispanic

Other

Race is Other Non-white

Race Not Obtainable

Race is Not Classifiable

Race Unknown

No match, not a possible response

Race Refused

No match, not a possible response

 

Decedent’s Ethnicity

 

  • Many of the VIP ethnicity variables were not available for all observations prior to 2015 (see below for full list).
    • DETHNIC_COLUMBIAN, DETHNIC_GUATEMALAN, DETHNIC_HONDORAN, DETHNIC_SALVADOR were not available for all observations prior to 2015 (these go into the creation of the Hispanic variable in VIP files).

 

VIP

Pre-VIP

Colombian

No match, not a possible response

Cuban

Hispanic ethnicity is Cuban

Dominican

Hispanic ethnicity is Dominican

Guatemalan

No match, not a possible response

Honduran

No match, not a possible response

Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano

Hispanic ethnicity is Mexican

Other Central American

Hispanic ethnicity is Other Central American

Other South American

Hispanic ethnicity is Other and Unknown Hispanic

Puerto Rican

Hispanic ethnicity is Puerto Rican

Salvadoran

No match, not a possible response

Native American, ethnicity

Race is Indian [American, Alaska, Canadian, and Mexican Indian, Eskimo and Aleut]

Chinese

Race is Chinese

Japanese

Race is Japanese

Vietnamese

Race is Vietnamese

Cambodian, Ethnicity

Race is Cambodian

Cape Verdean

Race is Cape Verdean

Laotian

Race is Laotian

Unknown

No match, not a possible response

Not Obtainable

No match, not a possible response

Refused

No match, not a possible response

African

No match, not a possible response

African (specify)

No match, not a possible response

African American

No match, not a possible response

American

No match, not a possible response

Brazilian

No match, not a possible response

Caribbean Islander

No match, not a possible response

Caribbean Islander (specify)

No match, not a possible response

European

No match, not a possible response

European (specify)

No match, not a possible response

Guatemalan

No match, not a possible response

Haitian

No match, not a possible response

Middle Eastern

No match, not a possible response

Middle Eastern (specify)

No match, not a possible response

Portuguese

No match, not a possible response

Russian

No match, not a possible response

Other Pacific Islander

No match, not a possible response

Other Portuguese

No match, not a possible response

Other Portuguese (specify0

No match, not a possible response

Other

No match, not a possible response

Other (specify)

No match, not a possible response

Other Central American (specify)

Hispanic ethnicity is Other and Unknown Hispanic) and specified as “Other Central American”

South American (specify)

Hispanic ethnicity is Other and Unknown Hispanic) and specified as “South American”

Asian Indian

No match, not a possible response

Korean

No match, not a possible response

 

Additional Resources

Contact   for PHIT Death Data Caveats

Online

Population Health Information Tool Information Email Population Health Information Tool (PHIT) at DPH.PHIT@mass.gov

Address

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