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Deaths

For questions about this data, email vstat@dshs.texas.gov or call (512) 776-7509

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Summary

Uses death certificate data to provide the most recent publicly available information on deaths of Texas residents by year, demographics, and across state and geographic regions.

Data Source

Texas Vital Statistics (VSTAT)

Data Description

These death data come from death certificates for Texas residents who died in state and out of state. Each death certificate identifies a single underlying cause of death that is defined as the disease or injury that initiated the events resulting in death. Causes of death are coded using the Tenth Revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) implemented in 1999.

Measure Information

Counts and Rates
Data suppression are indicated with "- -" for both counts and rates. Suppression occurs for counts that are 9 or less, or for rates that have fewer than 21 cases in the numerator.

When creating a custom data table, if a certain selection of row variables has no counts, that row will not show.

When a data spreadsheet is downloaded, suppressed values will appear as "-1"

Causes of Death are aggregated based on predefined lists of cause-of-death categories developed by National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for tabulating mortality statistics.

The causes of death presented in the table refer to the NCHS List of 113 Selected Causes of Death: ICD-10 Causes-of-Death Lists for Tabulating Mortality Statistics.

The top ten leading causes of death are based on NCHS' broader 52 rankable cause-of-death categories.

Sex: Decedents with an unknown sex are grouped with male.

Race and Ethnicity: For data prior to 2012, Non-Hispanic Other race/ethnicity category also includes records with Unknown race/ethnicity. For data 2012+, Non-Hispanic Other race/ethnicity category also includes records with Unknown race/ethnicity and Multiple race responses.

Public Health Regions: Add a new footnote for PHR: Effective 2024, Gaines, Dawson, and Borden Counties moved from PHR 9 to PHR 1. All PHR data reflects this change, regardless of year.

Population Estimates and Projections: Crude death rates by year for death occurring from 2011 to 2019 were calculated using population estimates. Crude death rates for deaths occurring for 2020 forward were calculated using population projections. More information about population estimates and are sourced from the Texas Demographer Center https://www.demographics.texas.gov/.

Additional Information

Texas DSHS Vital Statistics https://www.dshs.texas.gov/chs/vstat/Default.shtm

Center for Health Statistics

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) - Mortality

Texas Public Health Regions