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- Title
Alive or dead: Validity of the Social Security Administration Death Master File after 2011.
- Authors
Levin, Matthew A.; Lin, Hung-Mo; Prabakar, Gautham; McCormick, Patrick J.; Egorova, Natalia N.; Prabhakar, Gautham
- Abstract
<bold>Objective: </bold>To determine the reliability of the Social Security Death Master File (DMF) after the November 2011 changes limiting the inclusion of state records.<bold>Data Sources: </bold>Secondary data from the DMF, New York State (NYS) and New Jersey (NJ) Vital Statistics (VS), and institutional data warehouse.<bold>Study Design: </bold>Retrospective study. Two cohorts: discharge date before November 1, 2011, (pre-2011) or after (post-2011). Death in-hospital used as gold standard. NYS VS used for out-of-hospital death. Sensitivity, specificity, Cohen's Kappa, and 1-year survival calculated.<bold>Data Collection Methods: </bold>Patients matched to DMF using Social Security Number, or date of birth and Soundex algorithm. Patients matched to NY and NJ VS using probabilistic linking.<bold>Principal Findings: </bold>97 069 patients January 2007-March 2016: 39 075 pre-2011; 57 994 post-2011. 3777 (3.9 percent) died in-hospital. DMF sensitivity for in-hospital death 88.9 percent (κ = 0.93) pre-2011 vs 14.8 percent (κ = 0.25) post-2011. DMF sensitivity for NY deaths 74.6 percent (κ = 0.71) pre-2011 vs 26.6 percent (κ = 0.33) post-2011. DMF sensitivity for NJ deaths 62.6 percent (κ = 0.64) pre-2011 vs 10.8 percent (κ = 0.15) post-2011. DMF sensitivity for out-of-hospital death 71.4 percent pre-2011 (κ = 0.58) vs 28.9 percent post-2011 (κ = 0.34). Post-2011, 1-year survival using DMF data was overestimated at 95.8 percent, vs 86.1 percent using NYS VS.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>The DMF is no longer a reliable source of death data. Researchers using the DMF may underestimate mortality.
- Subjects
NEW Jersey; NEW York (State); UNITED States; UNITED States. Social Security Administration; VITAL statistics; MORTALITY; HOSPITAL mortality; DEATH; SOCIAL security statistics; DATABASES; RESEARCH methodology; RESEARCH funding; DEATH certificates; ACQUISITION of data; RETROSPECTIVE studies; MEDICAL coding
- Publication
Health Services Research, 2019, Vol 54, Issue 1, p24
- ISSN
0017-9124
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1111/1475-6773.13069