United Nations

NATIONS UNIES

Population Division
Department of Economic and Social Affairs

World Mortality Report 2019
CD-ROM Edition

Datasets in Excel format

Contents of CD-ROM:
The World Mortality Report 2019, CD-ROM Edition, prepared by the United Nations Population Division, provides a comprehensive set of mortality estimates for the world’s countries and their aggregates, along with an inventory of the availability of data for the estimation of adult and child mortality at the national level.
The Excel files in this CD-ROM are organized into two folders: (1) Mortality Indicators and (2) Data Inventory. For a complete listing of the data files included in the CD-ROM and their contents, see tables 1 and 2 below.
All mortality estimates contained in this CD-ROM are based on the results of World Population Prospects 2019 and provide an overview of levels and trends of mortality between 1950 and 2020. The CD-ROM contains the following mortality indicators: life expectancy at birth by sex; under-five mortality; infant mortality; probability of dying between ages 15 and 60 (45q15) by sex; survival probability between birth and age 60 (60p0) by sex; and life expectancy at age 60 by sex. Data in the Excel files refer to 201 countries or areas that had populations of 90,000 inhabitants or more in 2019. The Excel files also contain estimates for 54 country or areas aggregates, including the world as a whole, the development groups, the World Bank income groups, geographical regions and subregions. 

Each of the Excel files contains a worksheet displaying the estimates for the relevant indicators and a worksheet including explanatory notes. The worksheets displaying estimates contain the following entries in the first five columns:
Column A: Index. Contains numbers that order the data hierarchically by region, subregion and country or area. The order is that followed in publishing the results.
Column B: Development group, income group, region, subregion, country or area. This column contains the official name of the country aggregate or geographical unit to which the data refer.

Column C: Notes. This column contains, when necessary, a number relating a particular explanatory note to the data entries on a given row. Explanatory notes are presented in the worksheet labelled “Notes”.

Column D: Country code. This column contains numerical codes that identify in a unique way each country aggregate or geographical unit used. Codes for countries and areas are fully compliant with international standards as set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Codes for country aggregates are those established by the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat.

The file WMR2019_DB2_DATA_INVENTORY.XLS in the folder labelled “Data Inventory” contains information on the availability of data relevant for the estimation of adult and child mortality for each of the 201 countries or areas with at least 90,000 inhabitants in 2019. The inventory was carried out by the United Nations Population Division/DESA in connection with the preparation of the World Mortality Report 2019, building on previous revisions of this report since 2005. The file contains sources identified by December 2019 and does not necessarily represent an exhaustive listing of all data sources producing potentially relevant data for the estimation of mortality. The contents of each worksheet in the file are described below.
VITAL REGISTRATION: The worksheet with this label shows, for each country or area with 90,000 or more inhabitants in 2019, the years for which data on deaths by age and sex derived from a vital registration system have been reported either to the United Nations Statistics Division or to the World Health Organization (WHO). In a few cases, the list includes years for which vital registration data have been obtained by the United Nations Population Division from other sources (e.g., Human Mortality Database. University of California, Berkeley (USA), and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Germany); available at http://www.mortality.org). A small number of countries maintain sample vital registration systems, as indicated in the column labelled Notes (column F).
CENSUS: The worksheet with this label presents, for each country, the years in which a population census was conducted. Data on the population classified by age and sex are necessary to calculate mortality estimates when a complete recording of deaths exists and are also useful in the application of indirect methods of mortality estimation. In countries where data on the population by age and sex are obtained from population registers rather than censuses, this fact is indicated in the column labelled Notes (column F). A full list of census dates can be found at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/censusdates.htm
OTHER SOURCES: The worksheet with this label presents the list of censuses and nationally representative sample surveys that are known to have collected data relevant for the estimation of mortality.  Each specific data source is presented in a separate row. The name of the specific data source is presented in column H along with the year (or years) in which the data were collected. Column E shows the type of data source. Column F shows for surveys whether it was part of a well-known international survey programme. Columns K to Q list the type of data collected which are relevant for the estimation of mortality. The types included are: maternity histories, deaths by age and sex occurring in a household over a particular period, or the survival of close relatives (children, mothers, fathers, siblings or spouses). Whether each type of data was collected was discerned from the respective questionnaires used to collect the data and/or the published tabulations. It is not always known whether the data collected by a particular survey or census were processed, tabulated or published in their entirety.
Suggested citation:
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Mortality Report 2019, CD-ROM Edition - Datasets in Excel formats (POP/DB/MORT/2019).

Data in Microsoft Excel tabular formats
Table 1.  File list of data in MS-Excel formats

EXCEL FILES: DB1_Mortality_Indicators
	
WMR2019_MORT_A1_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_0_BY_SEX.XLS	Life expectancy at birth for both sexes combined and by sex, by development group, income group, region, subregion and country, 1950-2020	
WMR2019_MORT_A2_Q5_BOTH_SEXES.XLS	Under-five mortality (5q0) for both sexes combined by development group, income group, region, subregion and country, 1950-2020 (deaths under age five per 1,000 live births)	
WMR2019_MORT_A3_IMR_BOTH_SEXES.XLS	Infant mortality rate (1q0) for both sexes combined by development group, income group, region, subregion and country, 1950-2020 (infant deaths per 1,000 live births)	
WMR2019_MORT_A4_PROBABILITY_OF_DYING_45q15.XLS	Probability of dying between 15 and 60 (45q15) by sex, by development group, income group, region, subregion and country, 1950-2020	
WMR2019_MORT_A5_SURVIVING_PROBABILITY_60q0.XLS	Survival probability between birth and age 60 (60p0) by sex, by development group, income group, region, subregion and country, 1950-2020	
WMR2019_MORT_A6_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_60_BY_SEXES.XLS	Life expectancy at age 60 by sex, by development group, income group, region, subregion and country, 1950-2020	
WMR2019_Report_Annex-Tables.XLSX	Annex tables for the World Mortality Report 2019	

EXCEL FILES: DB2_Data_Inventory 
	
WMR2019_DB2_DATA_INVENTORY.XLS	Deaths by sex and age from vital registration
Population censuses
Other sources of data relevant for mortality estimation