Non-natural deaths in Newfoundland and Labrador 1951-1986 : manner of death, temporal and geographic rate variation and risk factors

Craig, David F. (1996) Non-natural deaths in Newfoundland and Labrador 1951-1986 : manner of death, temporal and geographic rate variation and risk factors. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The reported rates of suicide, homicide and traffic accident fatalities in Newfoundland and Labrador have consistently been lower than those in Canada as a whole. Whether the differences in these rates reflect different reporting practices or true differences in the rates of these manners of death has been in some dispute, particularly in the case of suicide. This issue is addressed by developing operational definitions for natural and non-natural deaths and for each manner of non-natural death. The registrations of all non-natural deaths occurring in Newfoundland and Labrador during every fifth year from 1951 - 1986 are reviewed and the operational definitions used to select the non-natural deaths and assign a manner of death to each of them. The numbers and rates of each manner of non-natural death thus determined are compared with those recorded by staff of the Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths and with Statistics Canada figures. Factors determining which non-natural deaths were registered by non-physicians are briefly reviewed as are the risk factors for each manner of non-natural death. -- There is agreement between the manners of death assigned by Vital Statistics personnel and those assigned in this study at at least a "probable" level of confidence in 89.9% of deaths studied and at the "almost undoubted" level of confidence in 62.6% of deaths studied and disagreement in 3.8 % of deaths studied. Suicides appear under-reported by approximately 20% in Statistics Canada figures; 6% are reported as "unknown" or "undetermined" deaths, 9% are reported as due to other manners of death, chiefly non-traffic accidents and 5% are reported as suicides on death records but do not appear as such in Statistics Canada figures.

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