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25
As has been shown in connection with births, an underestimation
of the population artificially improves the birth-rate.
In the same way it gives an unfairly bad idea of the health of the
district if that idea is based on the death-rate, and therefore
certain factors must be considered before any accurate deductions
can be made.
In calculating the death-rate for the year for any district,
information on four points is required: (a). the total population
at the middle of the year; (b). the number of deaths registered
during the year; (c). the number of deaths of non-residents and
(d). the number of deaths of residents registered in other places
during the year. Accurate facts in connection with the last three
points is obtained from the registrar's returns, but the first depends
entirely on the particular method of calculating the population
adopted by the Medical Officer of Health.