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Death Rates

github-actions[bot] edited this page May 27, 2026 · 16 revisions

1 Overview

Crude death rates are calculated within race, sex, and single year of age for each increment from the base year up to the launch year.

  • TBD - Utility to grow/decay death rates to meet horizon year expectations.

2 Input Datasets

3 Methods

  • For ages under 85, death rates are calculated using CDC WONDER as deaths divided by population for each race, sex, and single year of age. The calculation starts with San Diego County data and, when a value is suppressed or zero, substitutes data from larger geographies (California, then the United States). This approach reduces missing records and avoids unrealistic 0% death rates. The CDC WONDER sources used for each base and launch year by race/ethnicity are listed below. Because 2021 data are missing, 2020 data are used instead.
  • For ages 85 and older, we use the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) Life Table Survivors dataset. Because this dataset is stratified only by age and sex, we apply a scaling factor to estimate age-, sex-, and race-specific mortality rates. We derive that scaling factor by comparing implied mortality rates for ages 85 and older from CDC WONDER and solving for the value that aligns the UN DESA implied rate with CDC WONDER.

Table 1: CDC WONDER Exports

Note each CDC product has different race reporting standards (OMB SPD-15) and eligible datasets. The 1999-2020 product is missing Non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and Two or More Races and uses the combined data for all races. Meanwhile, the 2018-2024 product is missing population at the county level and is substituted with population estimates from within CCM. There is not enough data in the 2018-2024 product to do a five-year moving average for 2021, and as such, 2020 data will be used instead. The SYA files consist of ages 0-84 while the TYA files represent 85+.

Increment Year Race/Ethnicity File
2010-2020 Hispanic (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); HIS; ALL; (2010-2020); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2010-2020 American Indian or Alaska Native alone (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; AIAN; (2010-2020); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2010-2020 Asian alone (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; ASIAN; (2010-2020); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2010-2020 Black or African American alone (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; BAA; (2010-2020); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2010-2020 Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander alone (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; ALL; (2010-2020); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2010-2020 White alone (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; WH; (2010-2020); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2010-2020 Two or More Races (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; ALL; (2010-2020); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2022-2024 Hispanic (SD-CA-US); 2018+; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); HIS; ALL; (2022-2024); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2022-2024 American Indian or Alaska Native alone (SD-CA-US); 2018+; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; AIAN; (2022-2024); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2022-2024 Asian alone (SD-CA-US); 2018+; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; ASIAN; (2022-2024); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2022-2024 Black or African American alone (SD-CA-US); 2018+; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; BAA; (2022-2024); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2022-2024 Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander alone (SD-CA-US); 2018+; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; ALL; (2022-2024); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2022-2024 White alone (SD-CA-US); 2018+; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; WH; (2022-2024); 5Y.(txt-csv)
2022-2024 Two or More Races (SD-CA-US); 2018+; (SYA-TYA); (F-M); NON; ALL; (2022-2024); 5Y.(txt-csv)

Note each CDC product contains numerous instances of Not Stated categories where there are associated death counts but no population counts, making them unattributable to a specific demographic. To address this, we inflate the attributable deaths by this proportion and recalculate the rates based on the inflated death counts.

Increment Year Not Stated Category File
2010-2020 Age (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; NS; ALL; ALL; ALL; (2010-2020); 5Y.csv
2010-2020 Hispanic Origin (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; SYA; ALL; NS; ALL; (2010-2020); 5Y.csv
2010-2020 None (SD-CA-US); 1999-2020; SYA; ALL; ALL; ALL; (2010-2020); 5Y.csv
2022-2024 Age (SD-CA-US); 2018+; NS; ALL; ALL; ALL; (2022-2024); 5Y.csv
2022-2024 Hispanic Origin (SD-CA-US); 2018+; SYA; ALL; NS; ALL; (2022-2024); 5Y.csv
2022-2024 None (SD-CA-US); 2018+; SYA; ALL; ALL; ALL; (2022-2024); 5Y.csv

4 Repository Location

The main classes, methods, and utilities associated with creating crude death rates are contained in python/input_modules/death_rates.py

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