FOI REF: FOI/2022/4601
You asked
How many adults and children in England and Wales have died since the start of 2022 with the cause of death listed as unexplained or unknown?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
All of the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). The coded mortality data available up to end of December 2019 is coded to version 2014 of the ICD10 framework. From all these causes, an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules. The underlying cause of death is defined by World Health Organisation (WHO) as:
a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury
For cause of death as unexplained or unknown we would use ICD-10 code R99 Other ill-defined and unspecified causes of mortality for adults and children. However, if the cause of death was defined as Sudden, we would use ICD-10 code R96Sudden unexplained death in adult/Other sudden death, cause unknown. For Infants we would use R95.
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