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Older rationales and other challenges in handling causes of death in historical individual-level databases: the case of Copenhagen, 1880–1881

Revuelta-Eugercios, Barbara ; Castenbrandt, Helene LU and Løkke, Anne (2022) In Social History of Medicine 35(4). p.1116-1139
Abstract
Large-scale historical databases featuring individual-level causes of death offer the potential for longitudinal studies of health and illnesses. There is, however, a risk that the transformation of the primary sources into ‘data’ may strip them of the very qualities required for proper medical historical analysis. Based on a pilot study of all 11,100 deaths registered in Copenhagen in 1880–1881, we identify, analyse and discuss the challenges of transcribing and coding cause of death sources into a database. The results will guide us in building Link-Lives, a database featuring close to all nine million Danish deaths from 1787 to 1968. The main challenge is how to accommodate different older medical rationales in one classification... (More)
Large-scale historical databases featuring individual-level causes of death offer the potential for longitudinal studies of health and illnesses. There is, however, a risk that the transformation of the primary sources into ‘data’ may strip them of the very qualities required for proper medical historical analysis. Based on a pilot study of all 11,100 deaths registered in Copenhagen in 1880–1881, we identify, analyse and discuss the challenges of transcribing and coding cause of death sources into a database. The results will guide us in building Link-Lives, a database featuring close to all nine million Danish deaths from 1787 to 1968. The main challenge is how to accommodate different older medical rationales in one classification system. Our key finding is multi-coding with more than one version of the ICD system (e.g. ICD-1893 and ICD-10) can be used as a novel method to systematically handle historical causes of death over time. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
historical cause of death, large-scale historical individual-level population databases; ICD-10 classification; older rationales in causes of death; multiple coding as method
in
Social History of Medicine
volume
35
issue
4
pages
24 pages
publisher
Oxford University Press
external identifiers
  • pmid:36844659
  • scopus:85160712147
ISSN
0951-631X
DOI
10.1093/shm/hkab037
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a9112d23-04fb-408e-b1bd-b55804fea6d7
date added to LUP
2022-01-22 08:22:22
date last changed
2023-07-30 04:01:19
@article{a9112d23-04fb-408e-b1bd-b55804fea6d7,
  abstract     = {{Large-scale historical databases featuring individual-level causes of death offer the potential for longitudinal studies of health and illnesses. There is, however, a risk that the transformation of the primary sources into ‘data’ may strip them of the very qualities required for proper medical historical analysis. Based on a pilot study of all 11,100 deaths registered in Copenhagen in 1880–1881, we identify, analyse and discuss the challenges of transcribing and coding cause of death sources into a database. The results will guide us in building Link-Lives, a database featuring close to all nine million Danish deaths from 1787 to 1968. The main challenge is how to accommodate different older medical rationales in one classification system. Our key finding is multi-coding with more than one version of the ICD system (e.g. ICD-1893 and ICD-10) can be used as a novel method to systematically handle historical causes of death over time.}},
  author       = {{Revuelta-Eugercios, Barbara and Castenbrandt, Helene and Løkke, Anne}},
  issn         = {{0951-631X}},
  keywords     = {{historical cause of death; large-scale historical individual-level population databases; ICD-10 classification; older rationales in causes of death; multiple coding as method}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{4}},
  pages        = {{1116--1139}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Social History of Medicine}},
  title        = {{Older rationales and other challenges in handling causes of death in historical individual-level databases: the case of Copenhagen, 1880–1881}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkab037}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/shm/hkab037}},
  volume       = {{35}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}