Volume 47 - Article 5 | Pages 111–142  

Berkeley Unified Numident Mortality Database: Public administrative records for individual-level mortality research

By Casey Breen, Joshua R. Goldstein

Abstract

Background: While much progress has been made in understanding the demographic determinants of mortality in the United States using individual survey data and aggregate tabulations, the lack of population-level register data is a barrier to further advances in mortality research. With the release of Social Security application (SS-5), claim, and death records, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has created a new administrative data resource for researchers studying mortality. We introduce the Berkeley Unified Numident Mortality Database (BUNMD), a cleaned and harmonized version of these records. This publicly available dataset provides researchers access to over 49 million individual-level mortality records with demographic covariates and fine geographic detail, allowing for high-resolution mortality research.

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to describe the BUNMD, discuss statistical methods for estimating mortality differentials based on this deaths-only dataset, and provide case studies illustrating the high-resolution mortality research possible with the BUNMD.

Methods: We provide detailed information on our procedure for constructing the BUNMD dataset from the most informative parts of the publicly available Social Security Numident application, claim, and death records.

Contribution: The BUNMD is now publicly available, and we anticipate these data will facilitate new avenues of research into the determinants of mortality disparities in the United States.

Author’s Affiliation

• Casey Breen - University of California, Berkeley, United States of America EMAIL
• Joshua R. Goldstein - University of California, Berkeley, United States of America EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Fertility Reactions to the "Great Recession" in Europe: Recent Evidence from Order-Specific Data
Volume 29 - Article 4

Historical Addendum to "Life lived equals life left in stationary populations"
Volume 26 - Article 7

An editorial on plagiarism
Volume 24 - Article 17

Keeping a learned society young
Volume 20 - Article 22

Life lived equals life left in stationary populations
Volume 20 - Article 2

Formal Relationships: Introduction and Orientation
Volume 20 - Article 1

Found in translation?: A cohort perspective on tempo-adjusted life expectancy
Volume 14 - Article 5

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Where do we go from here? Partnership-parenthood trajectories of cohabitation as first union during young adulthood in the United States
Volume 53 - Article 9    | Keywords: cohabitation, family inequality, fertility, marriage, race/ethnicity, transition to adulthood, union formation, United States of America

The impact of population heterogeneity on the age trajectory of neonatal mortality: A study of US births 2008–2014
Volume 53 - Article 7    | Keywords: frailty, heterogeneity, heterogeneity, infant mortality, mortality, mortality selection, mortality selection, neonatal mortality, United States of America

A parallel kinship universe? A replication of Kolk et al. (2023) with Dutch register data on kinship networks
Volume 52 - Article 28    | Keywords: administrative data, extended family networks, kinship structure, Netherlands, Sweden

Can we estimate crisis death tolls by subtracting total population estimates? A critical review and appraisal
Volume 52 - Article 23    | Keywords: conflict demography, death tolls, demographic methods, historical demography, mortality, mortality crises, mortality estimates, population balance

Uncovering the underlying causes for the narrowing, stalling, and widening Black–White mortality gap from 2000 to 2022 in the United States
Volume 52 - Article 18    | Keywords: cause of death, decomposition, mortality trends, racial disparities, United States of America, years of life lost (YLL)