neonatal mortality

mortality

(mor-tal'it-e) [ mortal] 1. The condition of being mortal.2. The number of deaths in a population. In the U.S. about 2,300,000 people die each year. The most common causes of death, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, are (in descending order) heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive lung disease, accidents, pneumonia and influenza, diabetes mellitus, suicide, kidney failure, cirrhosis, and other chronic liver diseases. The causes of death vary by age group: accidents are the most common cause of death among infants, children, adolescents, and young adults; cancers are the most common cause of death among people ages 45 to 64. Heart disease predominates after age 65. See: table

all-cause mortality

All of the deaths that occur in a population, regardless of the cause. It is measured in clinical trials and used as an indicator of the safety or hazard of an intervention. See: disease-specific mortality

disease-specific mortality

All of the deaths that occur in a population from a specific illness. In clinical trials that study the effect of a treatment on that illness, it is used as a measure of the treatment's effectiveness. See: all-cause mortality

infant mortality

The number of deaths of children younger than 1 year of age per 1000 live births per year.