Visualizing mortality in Canada: Rates and counts by age group for select causes of death

Additional information

Note

Deaths under investigation by coroners or medical examiners, such as suicides, accidents and homicides, often require a lengthy investigation. As a result, information on cause of death—particularly among those under the age of 45, whose deaths are more likely to be investigated—generally takes longer to be reported to Statistics Canada. This means that the number and rate of deaths of certain causes may underestimate the true value for the most recent years.

Thus, during the production of death statistics each year, data from previous years may be revised to reflect updates or changes received from provincial and territorial vital statistics registries.

Analytical assistance

This dashboard shows the change in a cause of death by age at time of death since the year 2000. Data can be viewed by number of deaths, percentage of deaths and age-specific mortality rate per 100,000 population.

The percentage of deaths shows the proportion of a cause of death among all deaths. This indicator allows the importance of one cause of death among all deaths to be measured.

The age-specific mortality rate per 100,000 population allows analysis of the change in a cause of death using a common comparative base of 100,000 people residing in Canada. Therefore it is possible to better compare the change in a cause of death over time in a context where the population of Canada is also changing. The mortality rate also makes it possible to compare age groups that compose different proportions of the Canadian population.

Definitions

Cause of death: The tabulated cause of death is the underlying cause of death. The underlying cause of death is defined as (a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death, or (b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury. The underlying cause is selected from a number of conditions listed on the medical certificate of cause of death, using international mortality classification rules for statistical tabulation prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Deaths: Death refers to the permanent disappearance of all evidence of life at any time after a live birth has taken place. Stillbirths are excluded.

Percentage of deaths: The percentage of deaths is the proportion of a cause of death among all deaths in a given year.

Age-specific mortality rate per 100,000 population: The mortality rate is the number of deaths per 100,000 population in the same age group as of July 1 of the same year. Therefore, for "Age at time of death, all ages", the mortality rate represents the crude death rate or the number of deaths during a given year per 100,000 population as of July 1 of the same year.

Age at time of death: The age at which the individual died, i.e., the age attained at the last birthday preceding death.

For more information about the international mortality classification rules for statistical tabulation prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO), tenth edition (ICD-10), or the definition of grouped causes of death, please refer to the table “Deaths and age-specific mortality rates, by selected grouped causes,” table number: 13-10-0392-01