MORTALITY TRENDS

• Trends in national mortality rates •  

Graphs showing time trends in mortality rates

Female mortality at age 35-69 years, overall and for some

main mortality categories: Australia, 1952-2004

Graph showing Australian mortality, 1952-2003

Comment: The decline in vascular mortality since the early 1970s accounts for most of the decline in all-cause mortality over that period; in addition, the stalled decline in all-cause mortality during the 1960s may have largely been due to the levelling off in vascular mortality in that decade. Neoplastic mortality has been drifting downward since 1985, but much more slowly than for men. In 1983, the vascular mortality rate fell below the neoplastic mortality rate for the first time, and by 2004, it was only one third of the level of the neoplastic rate.

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