A method for calculating age-weighted death proportions for comparison purposes

To introduce a method for calculating age-weighted death proportions (wDP) for comparison purposes.

A methodological study using secondary data from the municipality of São Paulo, Brazil (1980-1994) was carried out. First, deaths are weighted in terms of years of potential life lost before the age of 100 years. Then, in order to eliminate distortion of comparisons among proportions of years of potential life lost before the age of 100 years (pYPLL-100), the denominator is set to that of a standard age distribution of deaths for all causes. Conventional death proportions (DP), pYPLL-100, and wDP were calculated.

Populations in which deaths from a particular cause occur at older ages exhibit lower wDP than those in which deaths occur at younger ages. The sum of all cause-specific wDP equals one only when the test population has exactly the same age distribution of deaths for all causes as that of the standard population.

Age-weighted death proportions improve the information given by conventional DP, and are strongly recommended for comparison purposes.