Tip Sheets

Lifting the shroud: Using multiple-cause-of-death data

Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service presented a class on using multiple-cause-of-death data at Health Journalism 2007. This is the presentation (PDF) and here is an article he wrote for AHCJ describing how he reported the project "Fatal Food."

LIFTING THE SHROUD:
Use the National Center for Health Statistics' massive Multiple Causes of Death database, which is free, to study just about anything fatal. Every year nearly 2.5 million Americans die. The annual NCHS database records all of these deaths, their causes, and demographic information about the departed. Scripps Howard News Service investigative reporter Thomas Hargrove will demonstrate the database and give you the tools to run your own computer investigations of death.