5 38 Mortality From Principal Causes Of Death
Mortality Statistics Of Insured Wage Earners And Their Families © 1919
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CHAPTER III.
MORTALITY FROM PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF DEATH.
The main outlines of the mortality experience of insured wage
earners for all causes of death combined appear in the foregoing
text. Data of this type, however valuable, are rather bare in their
public health value unless supplemented by further analysis accord-
ing to the principal diseases and conditions responsible for the mor-
tality. It is one of the favorable features of this report that we
were able to secure exceptionally complete statistics of the causes
of death in the course of our tabulations. The documents avail-
able for our study, namely, the so-called ” claim papers” contain,
usually, a number of statements of the disease or condition causing
death. The most important of these is, of course, the certificate as
submitted by the attending physician, who, in the great majority of
the eases, also completes the official death certificate for the use of
the general registration service of the community in which the in-
sured person dies. There are also at hand the statements of the
cause of death as made by the beneficiary, who represents the fam-
ily of the deceased, as well as that completed by the local represen-
tatives of the company. Often newspaper clippings and other il-
luminating additions are attached to the papers, and especially in
cases of accidental death or where a coroner’s inquest is called for.
Effort to Improve Accuracy of Certified Causes of Death.
Every effort has been made in the conduct of this mortality study
to secure from certifying physicians as complete and accurate state-
ments of the diseases or conditions causing death as practicable.
This end was achieved by means of an extensive system of corre-
spondence with the certifying physicians, pointing out where cer-
tain forms of statements of diseases causing death were unsatis-
factory for statistical use, and what manner of additional clarify-
ing information we desired to have. A few examples may be cited
to illustrate the procedure.
1. The physician reports on the death certificate that a child has died
from “bronchopneumonia.” In view of the fact that this disease or condi-
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