Infant deaths are often subject to lengthy death scene investigations and autopsy, including many ancillary tests (e.g., toxicology and genetic testing) ( 1–3). Furthermore, approximately one-third of infant death records submitted to NCHS are initially received with the cause of death undetermined or pending an investigation. Provisional estimates are subject to revision in future quarterly releases as additional records for that quarter are received. To adjust for the potential incompleteness of these data, individual records may need to be weighted to independent provisional counts of all infant deaths that occurred in each state by month.
Provisional infant mortality estimates are based on a snapshot of all vital statistics birth and death certificate data received and processed by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) as of a specified cutoff date. Please see the Technical Notes of the dashboard for more information.
Given the improvements in timeliness, provisional estimates of infant deaths will now be reported one quarter after the date of death, shortening the previous 6-month lag by 3 months. UPDATE: Recent improvements in timeliness of death certificate reporting have prompted a re-evaluation of the need for a 6-month lag time for the infant mortality Quarterly Provisional Estimates.
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