Proportionate mortality rate is not a direct measure of risk for dying from a disease in the population.

• A. True
• B. False
• C. It is a measure of incidence
• D. It estimates prevalence

Answer: (A)

A proportionate mortality rate represents the share of all deaths in a population that are due to a specific cause during a defined period. It tells you how important that cause is among deaths, not how likely someone in the population is to die from it. Because PMR is based on the total number of deaths from all causes, it depends on mortality from other causes as well as the age structure and competing risks in the population. If deaths from other causes rise or fall, the proportion dying from the specific disease can change even if the actual risk of dying from that disease doesn’t. It also does not reflect how many people actually develop or die from the disease over time (incidence or case fatality) and it does not estimate prevalence. For these reasons, it is not a direct measure of the risk of dying from that disease, so the statement is true.