WHO Mortality Database

Users should read carefully the "documentation.zip" file which contains new information added.

You are being provided herewith the original detailed data files which comprise the WHO Mortality DataBase (MDB). Due to the large size of these files, they are provided in ASCII (comma separated values) format to facilitate the download process. You should import these data files into a Database Management System rather than spreadsheets. These are the basic underlying detailed data files, together with the necessary instructions, file structures, code reference tables, etc. for use by those who need access to the full level of detail for specific analyses. Instructions for importing the comma separated values files into Microsoft Access are listed in Annex Table 3 of the "Documentation.zip" file. However users are strongly recommended not to try to import the data into spreadsheets because of the excessive number of records. There are over 2 million records in one data file.

The data available on this web site comprise deaths registered in national vital registration systems, with underlying cause of death as coded by the relevant national authority. These data are official national statistics in the sense that they have been transmitted to the World Health Organization by the competent authorities of the countries concerned. Each Member State reports population data along with their mortality data, for the population covered by the death registration system. Where this is a subset of the national population, the data is labelled accordingly in the WHO Mortality Database, e.g. Brazil (North and North-east) or Paraguay (reporting areas). However, the completeness of death registration may also be less than 100% for the specified registration population.

For Member States with incomplete vital registration systems, demographic techniques have been used by WHO to estimate the level of completeness of death recording for the specified population to allow the calculation of death rates. These population data are provided along with the deaths data. The proportion of all deaths which are registered in the population covered by the vital registration system for a country (referred to as completeness) has been estimated by WHO for the latest available year and is given in Table 3 available on this website.

Note that vital registration data may be 100% complete for the population covered, but not include full coverage of deaths in the country. The overall level of coverage for the latest available year for each country is also listed in Table 4. Coverage is calculated by dividing the total deaths reported for a country-year from the vital registration system by the total estimated deaths for that year for the national population. The national population estimates used are those of the UN Population Division. Best estimates of death rates by age and sex, adjusted for incompleteness and incomplete coverage), are applied to the national population data to obtain total estimated deaths. WHO estimated coverage for a Member State may be less than 100% due to incompleteness of registration, or to coverage of only some parts of the national population, or to differences between the vital registration population and the UN estimated de-facto population.

Death registration coverage and cross-national differences in coding practices, particularly in the use of codes for ill-defined and unknown causes, must be taken into account to validly compare mortality rates for specific causes across countries. WHO-validated estimates of total deaths by cause, age and sex for WHO regions and subregions for 2004 and 2008 may be downloaded from the Burden of Disease website.

The designations employed and the presentation of material in the MDB do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the World Health Organization or other parties involved in the MDB concerning the legal status of any country, territory or area, its authorities, its current or former official name, or the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Accordingly: a) strictly for purposes of statistical use, denominations are used which, although applicable at one particular time, may not reflect correct terminology at some other point in the historical context in which they are so used; b) references to "former" entities refer to countries that formerly existed under those names, or abbreviations; and c) in some cases, denominations are used to refer to countries as they currently exist and, when used with respect to data relating to before the existence of these countries as independent states, to sub-national entities of formerly existing larger countries.

WHO asks users to cooperate in the use of electronically transmitted data by adhering to the following guidelines:

• Material drawn from the MDB for publication must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of WHO as the source and a disclaimer crediting analyses, interpretations or conclusions to the author of the published data and not to WHO, which is responsible only for the provision of the original information.
• Users wishing to publish a technical description or qualification of the data will make a reasonable effort to ensure that it is not inconsistent with any published by WHO.
• Recipients of electronically transmitted data wishing to, or asked to make these, or copies thereof available to a third party are asked to refer such party to WHO, who will transmit the data directly accompanied with the necessary documentation. This will prevent circulation of out-of-date data, as the MDB is updated regularly.

It should be noted that these data are transmitted on the understanding that no use will be made of them for commercial purposes and that no such permission or right to use may be implied thereby.