Skip to main content

WISH Query: Mortality Module - Broad Groups (50+ Cause-of-Death Categories)

(Data updated March 2024)

This module creates statistics on mortality among Wisconsin residents. It creates tables showing the numbers and rates of death by cause of death, year, geographic area, age, sex, race and ethnicity.

This Broad Groups version combines all causes of death into 50 categories defined by the National Center for Health Statistics. More detailed categories are available in the Detailed Groups version, which uses 113 categories of causes.

Please note that a major revision to the classification system for causes of death was implemented in 1999. Caution should be used in comparing numbers or rates before and after that revision. See Trend Analysis Caution for details.

To shape your query, first decide the mortality measure you want, such as counts, rates or age-adjusted rates. Your measure can be presented for selected causes of death, for ranked causes, or for years of potential life lost.

You may focus on certain counties or regions; select the most recent year or a range of years back to 1990; and select age, race, or ethnicity groups. Finally, choose row and column variables for your table from a list that includes cause of death, geographic area, years, age, sex, race and ethnicity.

See Mortality Module Definitions for more notes on the measures.

Rates by race and Hispanic ethnicity depend on population estimates for the rate denominators. Users should note that those estimates for the years 2000 forward are revised annually to incorporate improved information from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

Step 1. Which measure do you wish to focus on?

Measure

Ranked Causes of Death, ranked by:

Note: To use the Ranked Causes measures, you need to select the measure here AND choose "Causes of Death" as a row variable in Step 6 below.

Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL)

Step 2. Select One or More Causes of Death (Optional)

(See the ICD-10 or ICD-9 codes) 

Cause of Death

Note: To see statistics for specific causes of death, you must specify one or more causes in the drop-down list above AND choose "Causes of Death" as a ROW or COLUMN variable in step 6 or 7 below.

Step 3. Choose One or More Geographic Areas

You can ask for data for the entire state of Wisconsin or for smaller geographic areas. All locations refer to place of residence.

All Areas: Include resident deaths from all areas. (This is the default option.)
Region: Click the "Region" button. Then click one region, or hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and click multiple regions.
County: Click the "County" button. Then click one county, or hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and click multiple counties.

Note: To see results for individual areas, first select the areas of interest here, then choose "Geographic Area" as a ROW or COLUMN variable in Step 6 or 7 below.

Geographic Area

Step 4. Choose One or More Years

You can choose to see data for the latest available year (2022). Or you can choose to see one or more single years, or one or more groups of years. Note: If you are requesting data for a small population, it is often useful to combine years of data. WISH suppresses small numbers (when cell size is less than 5) to comply with Wisconsin vital records data privacy guidelines.
Note: You may wish to analyze deaths before 1999 separately; see Trend Analysis Caution.

One or more years: Click a year, or hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and click multiple years.

Note: To see results for a series of years (or a series of year groups), first select the years of interest here, then choose "Years" as a ROW or COLUMN variable in step 6 or 7 below.

Years

Step 5. Choose a Specific Subpopulation (Optional)

Choose to include only some age, sex, or race groups. To select more than one group (but not all), hold down the Control key and click each selection.

Specific Characteristics


Step 6. Choose a Row Variable

Row Variable

Step 7. Choose a Column Variable (Optional)

Note: Cannot be used with a "Ranked Causes" query.

Column Variable

To send your request for data now.

To clear all selections and start over.

Glossary

 
Last revised December 4, 2024