NCHS International Statistics Programs
WHO Collaborating Center on Disease Classification

NCHS Fact Sheet, December 2016

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About NCHS

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the nation’s principal health statistics agency, providing data to identify and address health issues. NCHS compiles statistical information to help guide public health and health policy decisions.

Collaborating with other public and private health partners, NCHS employs a variety of data collection mechanisms to obtain accurate information from multiple sources. This process provides a broad perspective to help us understand the population’s health, influences on health, and health outcomes.

 

International Activities at NCHS

NCHS collaborates with countries around the world and participates in a wide range of international initiatives. These programs consist of cooperative ventures on analytical and methodological issues, technical assistance, consultation, training, information exchange, and liaison with multinational agencies. Additionally, NCHS sponsors and hosts international meetings and symposia in order to foster the sharing of scientific information. Through these efforts, NCHS seeks to improve the availability and advance the quality and comparability of health data in the United States and other countries.

There are three fact sheets for the International Statistics Program. In addition to the WHO Collaborating Center on Disease Classification, there are fact sheets on Bilateral and Multilateral Collaborations and Improving Disability Statistics available on the NCHS website.

 

Collaborations with International Organizations

NCHS collaborates with international organizations to increase the availability of internationally comparable data, track global health statistics, and improve statistical systems worldwide.

World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for the Family of International Classifications for North America

The WHO Collaborating Center for the Classification of Diseases for North America was established to represent the United States and Canada in international activities related to the development, revision, and implementation of WHO-FIC classifications (ICD and ICF). The North American Collaborating Center is located at NCHS. In this capacity, NCHS is responsible for coordinating all official disease classification activities in the United States and Canada relating to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), including their use, interpretation, and periodic revision. WHO produces international classifications of health, so there is a consensual, meaningful, and useful framework that governments, providers, and consumers can use as a common language.

• The ICD is the standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management, and clinical purposes. The most recent version, ICD–10, is designed to promote international comparability in the collection, processing, classification, and presentation of mortality statistics, including providing a format for reporting causes of death on the death certificate. The ICD coding rules improve the usefulness of mortality statistics by giving preference to certain categories, consolidating conditions, and systematically selecting a single cause of death from a reported sequence of conditions. A Mortality Reference Group considers potential updates to the current ICD version to improve the international comparability of mortality data.
• The ICF is a classification of health and health-related domains. The ICF is structured around the following broad components: body function and stature, activities (related to tasks and actions by an individual) and participation (involvement in a life situation), and additional information on severity and environmental factors.

 

United Nations Statistics Division

The United Nations Statistics Division compiles and distributes global statistical information, develops standards and norms for statistical activities, and supports countries’ efforts to strengthen their national statistical systems. NCHS provides the division with U.S. vital statistics data for a yearly demographic report, and it is an active partner in improving health statistics worldwide.

 

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED)

NCHS works with OECD on projects that facilitate international comparison of health data across a variety of measures. NCHS provides OECD with data for OECD Health Statistics, an annual comprehensive source of comparable statistics on health and health systems across OECD member countries. Data on topics such as health status, determinants of health, health care activities, and health expenditure and financing are featured in the OECD publication, Health at a Glance.
NCHS also serves as the U.S. representative to OECD’s Health Care Quality Indicator, a project aimed at comparing the quality of health care across OECD member countries.

For further information about NCHS and its programs, visit https://www.cdc.gov/nchs.htm.

For further information on the International Statistics Program, visit https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/isp.htm.