WISQARS™

The data source for WISQARS Fatal Injury Data is the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) operated by the National Center for Health Statistics. WISQARS provides death counts and death rates for the United States and by state, county, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, sex, leading cause of death, injury intent, and injury mechanism categories.

WISQARS can be used to query death data for the years 1999 - 2020, of which the underlying cause of death is specified using ICD-10 codes. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in an agreement with the National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) has implemented a new, more restrictive rule for reporting state- and county-level death data for years 2008 and later from NVSS in order to avoid inadvertent disclosure of a decedent's identity. Therefore, the Statistics, Programming and Economics Branch, Division of Analysis, Research, and Practice Integration, NCIPC has modified WISQARS to accommodate the new data suppression rule; i.e., no figure, including totals, should be less than 10 in tabulations for sub-national geographic areas, regardless of the number of years combined with the 2008 and later data. Tabulations, charts, and maps produced by WISQARS using only NVSS death data for years prior to 2008 are not affected by this new rule. Therefore, queries of state-level data for years 1999 through 2007 will remain unrestricted; queries of state-level data that include 2008 or later are restricted. As a WISQARS user, please read the following data use restrictions and click "I Agree." You will then be given access to this WISQARS module.

Data Use Restrictions:

The Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 242m(d)) provides that the data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) may be used only for the purpose for which they were obtained; any effort to determine the identity of any decedent, or to use the information for any purpose other than for health statistical reporting and analysis, is against the law. Therefore users will:

• Use these data for health statistical reporting and analysis only.
• For sub-national geography, not present or publish death counts of 9 or fewer or death rates based on counts of nine or fewer (in figures, graphs, maps, tables, etc.).
• Make no attempt to learn the identity of any person or establishment included in these data.
• Make no disclosure or other use of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently and advise the NCHS Confidentiality Officer of any such discovery.

Sanctions for Violating Rules:

Researchers who violate the terms of the data use restrictions will lose access to WISQARS and their sponsors and institutions will be notified. Researchers who are suspected of violating the rules may be prevented from using WISQARS until an investigation can be completed. Deliberately making a false statement in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the Federal government violates 18 USC 1001 and is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 or up to 5 years in prison, or both.