Use of Death Certificates to Identify Tuberculosis-related Deaths in Washington State

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To compare the accuracy of ICD-10 coded and text cause of death data in identifying tuberculosis (TB)-related deaths in Washington State. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was performed comparing TB-related deaths identified through death certificates using either text fields or ICD-10 codes to TB-related deaths identified in the TB registry. RESULTS: All methods using death certificate data overestimated the number of TB-related deaths and had low to moderate agreement with the tuberculosis registry. Several subjects assigned a TB ICD-10 code had no evidence of TB on the death certificate. CONCLUSION: Death certificates are not highly predictive of TB-related deaths. If death certificates are utilized, then TB-related deaths should be identified using direct cause of death text fields.