This file provides confirmation of the death, exact date of death, and detailed information on cause of death for respondents whose status is known and for respondents whose vital status is unknown (e.g. persons removed from the study or lost to follow-up). The file is based on finder files submitted to NCHS in 1996, 2002, 2003, 2004-2005, 2006, 2008 and 2011 for respondents who were assumed to have died prior to the end of 1995, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 or 2008. For each submission, a finder file was prepared containing the names of HRS respondents from all entry cohorts who were flagged as deceased in HRS administrative records or whose status was unknown as of the most recent interviewing year. This update is based on a finder file containing respondent records that met these conditions OR were not yet interviewed in the 2010 wave but were found in the Social Security Death Master File. The finder file was then submitted to NCHS for comparison with the NDI. The NCHS matching process can yield a variable number of potential matches. Using a probabilistic matching procedure, NCHS identifies as being deceased cases that it considers reliable (Status=1) and unreliable (Status=0) matches. Status 0 cases deemed unreliable and false positives (matched NDI records for respondents known to be alive) have been removed from the distribution database.

The standard distribution of the National Death Index Cause of Death file does not include day of death. In order to accommodate researchers who require exact death date (MMDDYYYY) for their analysis, the NDI distribution set includes a separate file conntaining month, day and year of death. Researchers who require this data set should request access to it when applying for the Cause of Death file. Once their application is approved, HRS will send the decryption keys for the Exact Date of Death file.

• The Cross-Year NDI Cause of Death file is not approved for use with any file derived from SSA administrative data
• This file includes cause of death information through interviewing year 2008 for deceased respondents who were matched in the search process. It replaces all previous versions.