Read Me File for Specifications for Help Screens, Prompts, Quesries, and Processing Interface on an Electronic Death Certificate (EDC) prepared by NCHS In order to facilitate the standardization of cause of death in death registration systems, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has prepared specifications for the format, structure, and content of the cause-of-death section to be incorporated into these systems. The specifications are based upon existing guidelines. The WordPerfect format is 240KB and the zipped version of the Wordperfect format is 54KB in size. Questions and comments regarding these files should be addressed to the Mortality Statistics Branch, National Center for Health Statistics, Room 820, 6525 Belcrest Road, Hyattsville, MD 20782. This material is provided by NCHS which is a subunit of CDC/ATSDR. It has been cleared for distribution by CDC/ATSDR and will be authentic if gotten from ftp://ftp.cdc.gov. CDC/ATSDR takes all effort to assure the authenticity of electronically distributed documents. However, in all instances where the electronic and official agency record differ, the authenticity of the official agency record is controlling.