Skip to main content

The Five Series Study Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests (2000) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:

4 Data Sources
Pages 19-25

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 19...
... The following federal agencies and facilities maintain collections that the study staff used: the Department of Defense, including the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marines, and the Nuclear Test Personnel Review Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) ; the Department of Veterans Affairs The organizational locus of the Nuclear Test Personnel Review Program within the Department of Defense has been the Defense Nuclear Agency (until June 1996)
Read the entire page →
From page 20...
... The Navy has deck logs that list officers and muster rolls that list enlisted personnel; Marine information comes from personnel rosters and daily diaries. Army and Air Force records are morning reports and personnel rosters.
Read the entire page →
From page 21...
... CHARACTERISTICS OF COHORT MEMBERS, INCLUDING DATE OF BIRTH AND VITAL STATUS To permit vital status ascertainment of the military record-identified members of the participant and comparison cohorts, date of birth is essential and Social Security number is valuable. The main sources of these pieces of information are the VA Beneficiary Identification and Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS)
Read the entire page →
From page 23...
... ^ A:} , ~ Cat ~ca ° ~ O O ce ce 5 0 Cry ~· ?
Read the entire page →
From page 24...
... These records contain personal identification data, such as date of birth, military service numbers, and sometimes Social Security numbers, in a standardized format. As mentioned previously, the availability of personnel records is limited; the fire at the NPRC in 1973 destroyed about 80 percent of the records for Army personnel discharged between November 1, 1912, and January 1, 1960, and about 75 percent of the records for Air Force personnel with surnames from "Hubbard" through "Z" discharged between September 25, 1947, and January 1, 1964.
Read the entire page →
From page 25...
... Although we used NDI cause of death in the study's analysis, we relied on itsfact-of-death ascertainment only as a validation tool (see Chapter 8~. POPULATION MORTALITY RATES FOR COMPARISON For the calculation of standardized mortality ratios for each cohort, the University of Pittsburgh's Mortality Data and Population Statistics program created cause-specific mortality rates for the ages and calendar time of interest for each of the study cohorts, participant and referent.
Read the entire page →

Key Terms

  • personnel records
  • records center
  • military service
  • death index
  • vital status

  • national death
  • personnel review
  • nuclear test
  • review program
  • test personnel

  • dod personnel
  • national personnel
  • atmospheric nuclear
  • study cohorts
  • study staff

  • medical records
  • reduction agency
  • defense nuclear
  • individual military
  • force personnel

  • nuclear tests
  • mortality rates
  • birls data
  • federal archives
  • nuclear agency

  • defense threat
  • records centers
  • claims folder
  • identifying information
  • threat reduction


    • This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
    More information on Chapter Skim is available.