Vital records are the recordings of a person's birth certificates, marriage or divorce license, and death certificates. In some legislation, domestic partners and civil unions are also included in the record. Generally, vital records are maintained by the officer of municipal-level of the government under the jurisdiction of state law. In some countries, the civil registry department keeps such records.

In the United States, vital records include assortment, arrangement, and publication of data such as birth, marriage, divorce, death, morbidity reports, and fetal death. Except the morbidity, the other facts, in times, act as legitimate proof. The assortment, processing, and evaluation of vital records are preserved by a procedure where the government, local and state agencies play their due role.

This huge amount of data contains accurate information on the economic enterprises, health programs, education, social welfare, and demographic analysis. The data regarding marriage and divorce, birth and death, and transmittable diseases are also simple to record. Unlike recording of individual basis, the states bring out summary and add it up.

Role of International Commission on Civil Status in keeping vital records
In Europe, International Commission on Civil Status is responsible for looking after its members. Many of the European countries are its members where it serves a mutually accepted coding given in the Civil Status Documents. Member countries can take the benefit of translation tables and common codes from there.

Role of NOVS in keeping vital records
The NOVS (National Office of Vital Statistics) is responsible for sorting out the development programs for health and vital records for the purpose of health programs, legislative planning, and demographic investigations. This is done in a way that coordination can be maintained within the departments to adjust, refine, and develop such records for those who need it. The state and health department are the main channels through which one can access to this information. In order to keep the vital records comparable over the time frame, NOVS is very much responsible for the update, refine, and store of the statistical data.

It should also be noted that vital records, if not carefully maintained or gets lost, could bring out severe loss to a country and to a nation. So, there is a need of an orderly negotiation between state to state and state to Federal Departments, because without these records of states, cities, territory, national offices can not be maintained accurately.