What is the importance of standardization of mortality rates? What is the usefulness of the different methods of standardization? Please elaborate on your answer and support with at least 4 scholarly...

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT        2
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT
Table of contents
Discussion    3
References    5
Discussion
Standardization of mortality rates is an important process used in epidemiology to account for differences in population structures, making it possible to compare mortality rates between populations that differ in terms of age, gender, or other factors. It is a crucial step in accurately estimating the burden of disease and identifying disparities in health outcomes. The usefulness of standardization is demonstrated in the example of comparing mortality rates between two populations with different age distributions (Kim et al., 2019). Age is a significant factor in mortality rates, with older populations generally experiencing higher mortality rates than younger ones. Comparing crude mortality rates between two populations with different age distributions can be misleading since differences in mortality rates may be due to differences in age rather than any actual differences in health outcomes.
There are different methods of standardization used in epidemiology, including direct, indirect, and age-specific standardization ((Sudharsanan et al., 2020). Direct standardization is a method that calculates expected mortality rates for each population based on the age distribution of a standard population. Indirect standardization, on the other hand, involves comparing the observed mortality rates in a study population with the expected rates derived from a reference population. Age-specific standardization involves calculating age-specific mortality...