Mortality and Causes of Death from Death Notification 1997-2005

This dataset contains statistics on recorded deaths (death registrations) in South Africa from 1997 to 2005. This data comes from two sources: the death register and the medical certificate in respect of death. The staff of the registrar of death fills in the former while the medical practitioner attending to the death completes the latter. The forms are administered by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), but they are sent to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) for processing. The registration of deaths is regulated by the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 51 of 1992. From the two forms sent to Stats SA, the following data items of the deceased are extracted: place of residence, place of death, date of death, month and year of registration, sex, marital status, occupation, underlying cause of death, whether or not the death was certified by a medical practitioner, whether or not the deceased died in a health institution or nursing home. From 1991 statistical information regarding recorded deaths obtained from the Department of Home Affairs did not include a population, and therefore this dataset includes death data for all population groups combined. Deaths were recorded according to the place of residence of the deceased. The tenth revision of the international classification of diseases (ICD-10) is used as the official coding system for publishing causes of death. From October 1992 unnatural (external) causes of death are stated as ‘unnatural’ only and are no longer specified in detail on the death register form of the Department of Home Affairs. However some physicians specify the cause of the unnatural death, and this is recorded in the data.