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Article: Mortality Rates
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Public Health
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MORTALITY RATES
The English statistician, William Farr (1807
–
1883) once remarked, "Death is a fact. All else is inference." He meant that everyone dies, but though useful deductions can be made about life and death, the information is imperfect and there are traps in interpretation for the unwary. Nevertheless, facts about deaths are a reliable and consistent source of information about the health of various populations. The information can be arranged in a hierarchy of reliability, ranging from certainty (the fact of death), through near certainty (age and sex), to the place and circumstances of death. The exact cause of death is probably the least reliable piece of information ...