Reliable information on the numbers of people who die in various countries according to age and sex is a fundamental requirement for setting health priorities and evaluation health programmes. Mortality levels and trends have been monitored in some countries for centuries, while in others, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, little is currently known about adult mortality. This uncertainty has increased in the 1990s due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, precisely at the time when priority setting in health requires reliable information on mortality levels in countries and regions. This book provides detailed country, regional and global estimates of age-specific mortality rates and life expectancy in the year 2000 for all 191 Member States of WHO, and for 14 sub-regions. Details on the data sources available and how they have been evaluated and adjusted to produce the best possible estimates of mortality are provided, along with a comprehensive analysis and presentation of all-known census, survey and vital registration data on child mortality since the 1960s. The book will serve as a key reference on mortality conditions worldwide at the start of the new millennium and should be an invaluable source against which to monitor the success of disease and injury prevention programmes. The text is trilingual, English, French and Spanish.