Age-standardised mortality

How big was the 2020 increase in mortality in England & Wales?

Measuring mortality matters. Death is the final outcome for many health problems. There are three different measures which analysts look at:

• Death registrations: this is the total number of deaths. These figures can be by the date of death or registration date.
• Crude mortality rates: the number of deaths divided by a population estimate. This number is often put for every 100,000 people or 1,000 people.
• Age-standardised mortality rates: this calculation starts with mortality rates for each age group. Analysts then calculate a weighted average of all those age-specific rates. That creates the age-standardised mortality rate.

The Office for National Statistics uses the 2013 European standard population. This is an artificial population. It seeks to represent the average of European states, including projections until 2030.

We compare each of these three measures for 2020. These figures are against the 2015–2019 average:

• Death registrations: increased by about 75,900 (14%)
• Crude mortality rate: up by 110 per 100,000 people (12%)
• Age-standardised mortality: increased by 80 per 100,000 people (8%)

For crude mortality rates, that reversion was back to 2003. (Image: R Pubs)