Mortality statistics

Abstract

The creation of civil registries, together with the obligation to report information on the deceased from the death certificate, have enabled the monitoring of various population health indicators. Data from death certificates, as compiled and disseminated by central statistics offices, are used to estimate different measures, most classically infant mortality and life expectancy. However, in high-income countries, infant mortality is no longer considered an appropriate measure of population health due to its low magnitude. From the health system perspective, the adoption of the International Classification of Diseases and Causes of Death was a crucial milestone in population health statistics, shedding light on the diseases responsible for most deaths and the trends in causes of death over time. Morbidity statistics and public health surveillance systems have important objectives, but they do not allow adequate monitoring of the frequency of diseases and other health problems, nor can they quantify diseases’ impact on population health. On the other hand, statistics on cause of death do provide this information thanks to the combination of two features: the exhaustiveness of the data they collect and the objective nature of the phenomenon they quantify.