The crude death rate is a good indicator of the general health status of a geographic area or population. The crude death rate is not appropriate for comparison of different populations or areas with large differences in age-distributions. Higher crude death rates can be found in some developed countries, despite high life expectancy, because typically these countries have a much higher proportion of older people, due to lower recent birth rates and lower age-specific mortality rates.
Death rate, crude (per 1,000 people)
Vital registers are the preferred source for these data, but in many developing countries systems for registering births and deaths are absent or incomplete because of deficiencies in the coverage of events or geographic areas. Many developing countries carry out special household surveys that ask respondents about recent births and deaths. Estimates derived in this way are subject to sampling errors and recall errors.
Crude death rate indicates the number of deaths occurring during the year, per 1,000 population estimated at midyear. Subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate provides the rate of natural increase, which is equal to the rate of population change in the absence of migration.
The crude death rate is calculated as the number of deaths in a given period divided by the population exposed to risk of death in that period. For human populations the period is usually one year and, if the population changes in size over the year, the divisor is taken as the population at the mid-year. The rate is usually expressed in terms of 1,000 people: for example, a crude death rate of 9.5 (per 1000 people) in a population of 1 million would imply 9500 deaths per year in the entire population. Subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate provides the rate of natural increase, which is equal to the rate of population change in the absence of migration.

Vital rates are based on data from birth and death registration systems, censuses, and sample surveys by national statistical offices and other organizations, or on demographic analysis. Data for the most recent year for some high-income countries are provisional estimates based on vital registers. The estimates for many other countries are from the United Nations Population Division.
Crude death rate indicates the number of deaths per 1,000 midyear population.