Table 1.

Overview of population-level databases identified as relevant for end-of-life care research

Database administrators	Database name	Population	Information provided in database
Inter Mutualistic Agency (IMA)	Population Database	Every Belgian citizen who is a member of one of the seven (compulsory) Belgian sickness funds, information in Population Database is updated twice each year from 2002 onwards	Socio-demographic characteristics (age, sex, date of death, place of residence, family composition, use of supportive measures)
	Pharmanet Database		Medication supply characteristics (substance, quantity, prescriber, expenses, refunds, delivery date)
	Medical Claims Database		Health and medical care use characteristics (quantity of use, reimbursement, supplier, supplier institution, length of treatment)
Belgian Cancer Registry	Cancer registry	Every new cancer diagnosis of Belgian residents, registered by oncological care programs and laboratories for anatomic pathology	Diagnostic characteristics (date of diagnosis, type of cancer, TNM gradation)
Statistics Belgium	Death certificate database	Every Belgian decedent with a registered death certificate	Direct and indirect causes of death (in ICD-10 codes), socio-demographics about the deceased, place of death
	Demographic dataset	Every Belgian citizen	Nationality group, household composition
	Socio-economic survey (SES) 2001 and Census 2011	Every Belgian citizen, information gathered from multiple external administrative databases using social security number (Census 2011)	Highest attained education level, occupation, housing comfort
	IPCAL dataset	Every Belgian citizen	Net income by category
Identified but not used in our research
Belgian Ministry of Health	Minimal Hospital Dataset	Every hospital admission in non-psychiatric general hospitals	Medical, nursery and personnel data for in-hospital care