MORTALITY TRENDS

• Trends in national mortality rates •  

Graphs showing time trends in mortality rates

Approximate percentage of cancer deaths at age 60-69 that were

ill-defined, both sexes combined, for 10 countries: 1950s-2000s

Graph showing ill-defined cancer mortality in 10 countries

Comment: This graph shows the proportion of male and female neoplastic deaths at age 60-69 years that were due either to a neoplasm of unspecified nature or to a benign neoplasm. However, the vast majority of these were due to neoplasms of unspecified nature - see "Unspecified cancer/benign" in the Information about Causes of Death.

Not a pretty graph, but the quantitative detail may be informative. The higher the percentage, the greater the underestimation of mortality rates for specified neoplastic diseases.

For an assessment of how complete and precise death certification is in different countries, see Counting the dead and what they died from... (Mathers et al., Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2005:83:171-7).

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