New Jersey law requires the prompt filing of a death certificate by the proper authority, such as hospital personnel, physicians, medical examiners, and funeral directors, in the event of a death occurring in the state. These certificates are submitted to the office of the State Registrar, where they are recorded and filed permanently. Statistics on deaths of New Jersey residents which occurred in other states are obtained through participation in the national Vital Statistics Cooperative Program (VSCP). Only deaths of New Jersey residents are included in the query system.

ICD stands for International Classification of Diseases. It is a coding system maintained by the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. It is used to classify causes of death on death certificates and diagnoses, injury causes, and medical procedures for hospital and emergency department visits. These codes are updated every decade or so to account for advances in medical technology. The U.S. is currently using the 10th revision (ICD-10) to code causes of death.

• THE DATA IN THIS QUERY MODULE ARE NOT FINALIZED. All counts shown are temporary and will change. The module is updated monthly and should only be used for public health surveillance purposes, not research. The date the dataset was last updated will show in the Query Date Time Stamp below the Data Table after a query is submitted.
• The file contains some, but not all, deaths of NJ residents that occurred out of state.
• The total death count for a given date is mostly complete about a week after that date. However, cause of death coding takes at least a week and sometimes longer than a month for some records, therefore the most recent deaths have blank causes of death.
• Some records may have invalid or out-of-range values that still need correction.
• GRAPHS: Some graph types are not designed to be used with certain data types, therefore your selections may not produce the graphical display you expect it to. Interpret graphs produced within NJSHAD with caution.