NCHS VSRR: Quarterly Provisional Infant Mortality and Cause-of-Death Rates

NCHS VSRR data provides quarterly provisional estimates for infant mortality, neonatal mortality, postneonatal mortality, and death rates for the five leading causes of infant death in the United States. The dataset includes metrics such as rates, standard errors, significance flags, and footnotes. It is published by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Use Cases

• Tracking quarterly trends in infant mortality rates using the `Rate`, `Year and Quarter`, and `Time Period` columns.
• Assessing the statistical significance of mortality rate changes using the `Significant` and `Standard Error` columns.
• Analyzing cause-specific infant death rates by filtering on the `Indicator` and `Topic` columns.
• Interpreting data caveats and methodological notes by referencing the `Footnote` and `Footnote Symbol` columns.

Strengths

• Provides provisional data, enabling near-real-time monitoring of infant mortality trends.
• Includes statistical annotations such as standard errors and significance flags for robust analysis.
• Covers multiple mortality indicators (infant, neonatal, postneonatal) and the five leading causes of death.

Limitations

• Metadata conflicts exist: one source lists a last update date of 2026-03-13, which is a future date and likely an error.
• Row counts and dataset size are unknown across all sources, limiting assessment of scale.
• The license is specified only as 'other-license-specified' without clear terms.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), data.cdc.gov

Collection Method

Provisional estimates from the Vital Statistics Rapid Release (VSRR) program.

Time Range

Quarterly time series, specific range not provided.

Freshness

Last updated dates are reported as 2026-03-13 and 2026-03-12, but the 2026 dates are likely erroneous.

Geography

United States