Frequency with which eight scenarios occurred in five European countries, 1970–2010, and number of observations of increasing and decreasing rate ratios and rate differences for each scenario
| Starting RR and RD | Change in mortality | Nr. | Number of observations (RR up/down; RD up/down) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total mortality | Large cause-of-death groupings | Specific causes of death | ||||
| Declining mortality | RR>1, RD>0 | Δh<Δl<0 | I.a | 9 (9/0; 4/5) | 30 (30/0; 17/13) | 30 (30/0; 11/19) |
| RR<1, RD<0 | Δh<Δl<0 | I.b | 0 | 3 (3/0; 3/0) | 19 (19/0; 19/0) | |
| RR>1, RD>0 | Δl<Δh<0 | I.c | 1 | 7 (0/7; 0/7) | 10 (2/8; 2/8) | |
| RR<1, RD<0 | Δl<Δh<0 | I.d | 0 | 0 | 1 (0/1; 1/0) | |
| Increasing mortality | RR>1, RD>0 | Δl>Δh>0 | II.a | 0 | 0 | 4 (4/0; 4/0) |
| RR<1, RD<0 | Δl>Δh>0 | II.b | 0 | 0 | 4 (4/0; 4/0) | |
| RR>1, RD>0 | Δh>Δl>0 | II.c | 0 | 0 | 1 (0/1; 0/1) | |
| RR<1, RD<0 | Δh>Δl>0 | II.d | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
Bold indicates RR or RD down. Numbers in fourth column refer to scenarios mentioned in table 1. Total number of observations on total mortality is 10 (5 countries×2 sexes), and on large cause-of-death groupings is 40 (5 countries×2 sexes×4 cause-of-death groupings). Total number of observations for specific causes of death is less than 72 (4 countries×2 sexes×9 causes) because of small number problems for some causes in some countries (see web appendix table S2). Counts for categories I.a and I.b include the (uncommon) situations in which mortality among the high educated declines, and that among the low educated increases.