MORTALITY TRENDS

• Trends in national mortality rates •  

Graphs showing time trends in mortality rates

Female category-specific mortality at age 1-14 years in

the United Kingdom: 1950-2007

Graph showing category-specific mortality at age 1-14 years in the UK, 1950-2007.

Comment: Female mortality at age 1-14 years in the UK fell by 68% between 1967 and 2007. This corresponds to an absolute decline of 28 yearly deaths per 100 000 girls this age, some 15% of which is attributable to a decrease in motor vehicle crash and other forms of road transport injury (including pedestrian and pedal cycle injury), 3% similarly to a decrease in drowning, and 12% to a decrease in other forms of injury. A further 7% of the overall absolute decline is attributable to a decrease in leukaemia, 8% to a decrease in all other cancers combined, 15% to a decrease in pneumonia, and 8% to decrease in infectious disease (besides pneumonia).

Categories: For descriptions of what the categories mean, and examples of the causes of death they include, see the Information about Causes of Death page.

Method: Mortality rates calculated using data from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Population Division, then standardised for age (by taking unweighted averages of component rates) and smoothed (as weighted 3-year moving averages). For details, see the Info page.

Caution: Trends can reflect not only changes in disease occurrence or treatment, but also changes in how a cause of death is defined or coded.

WHO mortality rates for particular countries, ages and causes of death