Provisional COVID-19 Deaths by Race and Education Level

United States provisional mortality data links COVID-19 deaths to demographic and socioeconomic factors. The dataset provides cumulative counts of deaths by race or Hispanic origin and educational attainment, coded to ICD-10 U07.1. It is published by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and was last updated in April 2025.

Use Cases

• Analyze disparities in COVID-19 mortality rates by comparing COVID-19 Deaths to Total Deaths across different Race or Hispanic Origin groups.
• Model the relationship between Education Level and COVID-19 Deaths to assess socioeconomic gradients in pandemic mortality.
• Track temporal trends in provisional mortality by examining changes in counts between the Start Date and End Date fields.
• Compare cause-specific mortality by calculating the proportion of COVID-19 Deaths within Total Deaths for each demographic stratum.

Strengths

• Data sourced from the authoritative CDC National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).
• Includes key demographic breakdowns by Race or Hispanic Origin and Education Level.

Limitations

• Data is provisional and subject to revision, which may affect final counts.
• Geographic scope is limited to the United States, limiting international comparability.
• Specific sample sizes and row counts are not provided, obscuring dataset scale.

Provenance

Source

data.cdc.gov / National Center for Health Statistics.

Collection Method

Provisional death certificate data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

Time Range

Coverage period defined by Start Date and End Date columns.

Freshness

Updated regularly as provisional data; last update was April 2025.

Geography

United States.