Data Source

"National Center for Health Statistics - Mortality Files: Data on deaths and births were provided by NCHS and drawn from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). These data are submitted to the NVSS by the vital registration systems operated in the jurisdictions legally responsible for registering vital events (i.e., births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and fetal deaths). In prior years of the Rankings, Premature Death was calculated by the National Center for Health Statistics, but the Mortality-All County (micro-data) file was requested this year. This allowed us to calculate Premature Death and Life Expectancy ourselves. While most calculations of mortality rates can be downloaded from CDC WONDER, the calculation of Years of Potential Life Lost and Life Expectancy requires raw data files." 

Measure Methods

• "Child Mortality is a rate: Child Mortality measures the number of deaths occurring before the age of 18 per 100,000 population. Rates measure the number of events (e.g., deaths, births) in a given period (generally one or more years) divided by the average number of people at risk. Rates facilitate data comparisons across counties with different population sizes."

• "Child Mortality is a rare event (statistically speaking): Child death is a relatively rare event in most counties. Counties with smaller populations can see a lot of relative change in child death rates yearly. Such changes are usually due to normal variation and are not necessarily caused by any change in the county's underlying risk of child death. To help determine if the child death change in a county is due to normal variation or real change, we recommend examining the provided error margins. Error margins are statistical tools that aid the interpretation of variation in measures. If the error margins overlap year to year, the variation in Child Mortality is less likely to reflect real underlying changes in community health."

• "What deaths count toward Child Mortality?: Deaths are counted in the county of residence, regardless of where the death occurred."

• "Some data are suppressed: A missing value is reported for counties with fewer than ten child deaths in the time frame."

• "Numerator: The numerator is the number of deaths occurring before age 18."

• "Denominator: The denominator is the total population under the age of 18."

• "Can This Measure Be Used to Track Progress? This measure can be used to track progress with some caveats. Child death is a relatively rare event, especially in small counties. Statistics depend on large numbers of events to detect small changes, meaning that small changes in small communities may be difficult to detect. It is also important to note that the estimate provided in the County Health Rankings is a 4-year average."

Source: Child Mortality* | County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

Schuyler (SU) County data was unavailable for this measure. This is the average data for Chemung (CE), Livingston (LI), Ontario (OT), Seneca (SE), Steuben (ST), Wayne (WY), and Yates (YA) counties.