Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Comparison of National Death Index and World Wide Web Death Searches

2000; Oxford University Press; Volume: 152; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/aje/152.2.107

ISSN

1476-6256

Autores

Howard D. Sesso, Ralph S. Paffenbarger, I-M. Lee,

Tópico(s)

Migration, Health and Trauma

Resumo

The authors used the National Death Index and a World Wide Web Internet site that searches the Social Security Administration master files of deaths to determine the mortality status of 1,000 US subjects from the College Alumni Health Study. Subjects were classified as definitely dead, possibly dead, or presumed alive. Of 246 definite deaths pinpointed by the National Death Index, the World Wide Web identified 94.7% of them. Of 438 men presumed alive according to the National Death Index, the World Wide Web identified 97.5% of them. However, the World Wide Web was not useful for identifying deaths of women. This study demonstrated that the World Wide Web may provide an alternative, inexpensive method of determining the mortality status of subjects in relatively small epidemiologic studies.

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