When a funeral director fills in a death certificate, two lines — the person's occupation and industry — become public health data. Researchers use them to find links between work and cause of death. If those lines are vague or wrong, the links can't be seen. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of CDC, offers this guidance for getting them right.
Why it matters
Occupation and industry recorded in Electronic Death Registry Systems (EDRSs) are used to:
- detect new illnesses or injuries tied to particular industries or occupations;
- monitor known links between job hazards and disease — black lung disease in the coal industry, for example, re-emerged in 2019;
- measure the burden of illness in particular jobs, to set research priorities;
- guide prevention and deeper research on work and health.
"Usual" means longest-held
Death certificates ask for the person's usual occupation: the job they held the longest. That may not be their most recent job, their job at the time of death, or their best-paid one. Record it with the matching industry.
Occupation is not industry
| What it is | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| Occupation | What the person did for a living — the type of job, usually the job title | Architect, registered nurse, computer programmer, medical laboratory technician, elementary school teacher, auto mechanic |
| Industry | The type of business or activity where they worked — what the business does, not what the worker did there | A movie theater, an airline, a general hospital, a golf course, a high school, a beer bottling plant |
Both are needed, because the hazards of the same occupation can differ by industry.
Tips for the conversation with the family
- If they ever worked, fill it in. Complete occupation and industry for everyone who was ever employed. If the person truly never worked, write "Never worked."
- Don't write "retired." Being retired generally means the person had an occupation. Record the longest-held one and its industry.
- Don't write "disabled." People with disabilities often worked, or had jobs before the disability. Only if a disability prevented them from ever working, write "Never worked."
- Ask about occupation first, then industry. Families usually know the person's job better than the industry, and can be confused by the second question.
- Prompt for detail. If the answer is "consultant," ask what kind. For a vague industry, ask, "What did their company do or make?"
The cover of NIOSH's guidelines. Image from CDC's page of information for funeral directors.
More help
- Guidelines for Reporting Occupation and Industry on Death Certificates, which update guidance written in 1988 by the National Center for Health Statistics; also in Spanish.
- A seven-part training video series, Recording Industry and Occupation on Death Certificates: an introduction; defining usual occupation and industry; common occupation responses and how to improve them; the same for industry; special cases such as self-employment, retirement, disability, company names and acronyms; a worked example of one person's jobs over a lifetime; and a review. It starts with Part 1, and is also available in Spanish.
Training videos
NIOSH's seven-part video series on recording industry and occupation on death certificates:
Recording Industry and Occupation on Death Certificates, part 1. NIOSH.
Part 2. NIOSH.
Part 3. NIOSH.
Part 4. NIOSH.
Part 5. NIOSH.
Part 6. NIOSH.
Part 7. NIOSH.
Sources
Based on "Information for Funeral Directors," National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
- The films are the agency's own low-resolution copies, recovered from the Internet Archive's record of cdc.gov.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.cdc.gov
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