Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Healthy New Jersey
Vital Events Data and Statistics
Vital records (certificates) are filed with and maintained by the NJDOH Office of Vital Statistics and Registry (OVSR). The Center for Health Statistics (CHS), along with OVSR and the National Center for Health Statistics, performs data quality checks on the electronic files of these records. CHS geocodes the residence address data to assign census tract, block, and group and latitude and longitude information as well as to correct invalid residence address information. The data are then analyzed and disseminated by CHS via the methods listed under Accessing Data on the right.
- A live birth is defined as the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy, which, after such separation, breathes or shows any evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles.
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- Cause of death coding for all states is performed by the National Center for Health Statistics.
- Infant deaths are deaths within the first year of life and are included in the regular death data file. A separate analytical file of death certificates matched to birth certificates is created to better understand the circumstances of infant deaths, but there is no separate "infant death certificate."
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- Leading causes of death
Provisional Year-to-Date Data Query Module
- Use NJSHAD to create custom tabulations of New Jersey resident death certificate data.
- Filter and display death counts by month, day, cause, or place of death; demographic characteristics; and county or municipality of residence.
- Data updated monthly.
Deaths by Month and County: 2018-2023
- Data tables and graph of monthly total death counts by county of residence for each year.
- Tables of leading causes of death by age, race/ethnicity, sex, nativity, place and month of death, and county of residence.
- COVID was New Jersey's 2nd leading cause of death overall in 2020.
- COVID was the leading (#1) cause of death in 2020 among New Jersey's
- Black, Hispanic, Asian, and foreign-born (of any race/ethnicity) residents;
- Residents who died as hospital inpatients;
- Residents who died in April, May, and December; and
- Residents of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic, and Union Counties.
- Leading causes of death in other years for comparison: 2000-2021
- Graph of daily death counts due to COVID-19 and other causes of death for 2020 compared to average daily death counts for 2015-2019.
Average Daily Deaths by Cause of Death: 2015-2018
- Average daily death count in the last few years due to selected causes of death.
- Use to compare daily COVID-19 death counts to the typical number of daily deaths from heart disease, cancer, car crashes, influenza, and other causes of death.
New Jersey Department of Health
Information about COVID symptoms, vaccines, testing, prevention, resources, and additional data are available on https://www.nj.gov/health/covid-19/.
CDC National Center for Health Statistics
NCHS's COVID-19 Death Data and Resources website contains provisional death counts (updated weekly), guides to understanding provisional counts and death data quality, and other related content.
- A fetal death is a death prior to the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception; the fetus shows no signs of life such as breathing or beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles. Fetal deaths are also referred to as stillbirths, miscarriages, or spontaneous abortions.
- Unlike infant deaths, fetal deaths have a unique certificate different from a birth certificate or a death certificate.
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- Licenses and Registration:
The following are not vital events but are often associated with them.
Additional resources:
- Historical NJDOH Health Statistics Reports:
- National Vital Statistics System
- Stats of the States
- USALEEP - census tract level life expectancy estimates