DOI: 10.17863/cam.109962.2
title: Historic cause of death coding and classification scheme for individual-level causes of death – English language historic strings

description: ICD10h2024.2 (this version, published June 2025) incorporates the following changes: - Manual: new preface to list changes to files; changes relating to code changes; a small number of other corrections and improvements. - Masterlist (see 2025MasterlistChanges): 9 new codes added, 5 codes deleted, and 17 changes made to ICD10 or ICD10h descriptions. - Transferfile (see 2025TransferfileChanges): 47 errors were fixed. - InfantCat (see 2025InfantCatChanges): 17 ICD10h codes were updated. - Historic Strings English (see 2025HistoricStringsEnglishChanges): 14 changes were made to ICD10h or ICD10hInjury codes were made. ICD10hDescription and ICD10hInjuryDescription columns were deleted. This file contains the exemplar list of historic strings together with the ICD10h codes and descriptions associated with the ICD10h (Historic cause of death coding and classification scheme for individual-level causes of death). ICD10h has been designed by the authors to aid the coding and classification of causes of death recorded on historic individual death records and associated files include a manual, the list of codes, descriptions and values of a general categorisation, and a categorisation for infant mortality. The ICD10h system is based on the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases - 2016 version (ICD10 - 2016), and combines ICD10 codes (without modification) with new codes for archaic/historic terms. The data was derived from the following projects/deposited data: Determining the Demography of Victorian Scotland Through Record Linkage, ESRC RES-000-23-0128 held at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, University of Cambridge; P. Gunn and R. Kippen, ‘Household and Family Formation in Nineteenth-Century Tasmania, Dataset of 195 Thousand Births, 93 Thousand Deaths and 51 Thousand Marriages Registered in Tasmania, 1838-1899’, 2008. The resource creation was supported by the following projects: Digitising Scotland/Scottish Health Informatics Project (funded by the ESRC); Studying Health in Port Cities (funded by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research); The Great Leap (funded by COST-Action CA22116). SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION This resource is available under a CC BY licence. Recommended citation for this dataset: Historic cause of death coding and classification scheme for individual-level causes of death – English language historic strings [https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.109962.2] Please see the associated resources: Historic cause of death coding and classification scheme for individual-level causes of death – manual [https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.109960.2] Historic cause of death coding and classification scheme for individual-level causes of death – Codes [https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.109961.2] Historic cause of death coding and classification scheme for individual-level causes of death – Infant Categorisations [https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.109963.2] ICD10h is a research tool created to facilitate the study of historical cause of death records and should not be used for any official purpose. It is based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) version 2016 (Geneva: World Health Organization 2016) but is not a recognised version or extension of ICD-10 and is not authorised by WHO. However we have consulted with WHO: they recognise that ICD10h is a useful academic methodology and have not raised any objections to its creation. Data coded using ICD10h are not directly comparable with data coded in ICD-10, and the underlying or primary cause of death derived using the ICD10h methodology may be different from the underlying cause derived in ICD-10 according to the WHO rules. Please note that ICD-10 version 2016 is not the most recent version of ICD-10; and that WHO now recommend the use of ICD-11; a more advanced and detailed classification. DATA & FILE OVERVIEW ICD10h_HistoricStringsEnglish.xlsx Excel file consisting of 2 worksheets: 1) ReadMe sheet 2) HistoricStringsEnglish Separate csv file for 2) containing the same information. This file builds on a previous, unpublished version of ICD10h (dating from 2020). METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION The data were hand-coded and subject to stringent algorithm-assisted tests. DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: HistoricStringsEnglish Number of variables: 7 Number of cases/rows: 3306 Variable List: ID_HistoricStrings (unique ID for HistoricStrings table) HistoricString (Historic cause of death string as encountered in records) ICD10h (ICD10h code) ICD10hInjury (additional ICD10h code for injuries) ICD10hDescription (ICD10h description) ICD10hInjuryDescription (additional ICD10h description for injuries) CancerMalignancyFlag (0=not a neoplasm; 1=no information on malignancy; 2=stated to be malignant; 3=stated to be benign; 4=stated to be of uncertain behaviour)