The reliability of mortality count and suicide count in the United States Army.

The extent of agreement in soldier death count between two independent electroni information systems in the United States Army, one medically-based and the other personnel-based, was studied for calendar years 1975 and 1976 and was found to b unsatisfactory for epidemiologic purposes. The two death lists shared only 63.5 percent commonality in the total mortality count of 2458 cases. Agreement in suicide labeling was also studied and found to be even lower. Possible reasons for the discrepancies are discussed, and implications of such low reliability