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Death Cert.
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If a death Certificate has two causes on it A+B is A more significant than B
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From the guidance given to doctors:
"You are asked to start with the immediate, direct cause of death on line 1a, then to go back through the sequence of events or conditions that led to death on subsequent lines, until you reach the one that started the fatal sequence. If the certificate has been completed properly, the condition on the lowest completed line of part I will have caused all of the conditions on the lines above it. This initiating condition, on the lowest line of part I will usually be selected as the underlying cause of death."
. . . and:
"You should also enter any other diseases, injuries, conditions, or events that contributed to the death, but were not part of the direct sequence, in part two of the MCCD. The conditions mentioned in part two must be known or suspected to have contributed to the death, not merely be other conditions which were present at the time."
Just to tidy up my answer (based upon the document that I've linked to above) . . .
If the two causes are both within Section 1 of the death certificate, then A is the immediate cause of death (e.g. kidney failure) but B is the underlying cause of death (e.g. what actually led to the kidney failure occurring).
If A is in Section 1, but B is in Section 2, then the only factor that directly led to the death was A but B can be considered to be a contributory factor.
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