Les causes de décès en France. II. — Couplage des 7e et 8e révisions de la classification internationale. Application à la période 1958-1974

Nizard Alfred and Vallin Jacques. ? Causes of Death in France. II The Linking of the 7th and 8th Revisions of the International Classification. Application to the Period 1958-1974. In the first article it was shown that mortality could be re-classified along two axes, one aetiological and the other anatomical, starting from the basic list of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). In this paper, the problem of linking statistics between different revisions of the ICD is discussed. The seventh and eighth revisions, adopted respectively in 1955 and 1965, are taken as examples. The two lists were divided into basic groups in such a way that each contained a set of identical diseases or causes of death for the whole period covered by the seventh and eighth revisions. Although the medical definitions used were consistent, it was not always possible to obtain a continuous statistical series of causes of death. However, it proved possible to order the groups of the ICD for 1955 according to aetiology and anatomy in a manner consistent with the decisions that had already been made for 1965. The re-classification of deaths during the period 1958-1967 (covered by the ICD for 1955) by aetiology and anatomical site can then be linked without too great difficulty to the classification obtained for the period 1968-1974 (covered by the ICD for 1965).