MORTALITY TRENDS

• Trends in national mortality rates •  

Graphs showing time trends in mortality rates

UK, US, French and Dutch mortality from female

breast cancer at age 35-69 years: 1952-2005

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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. (The same factors can also account for differences in mortality rates between different countries.) Those due to changes in definition or coding are artefacts, and may be indicated here by dotted (or thin) lines. But, many artefactual trends have no such indication.

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