Vol. 3, Issue 1, Part G (2017)

Abstract
Cause of death information is an important planning tool for health services. The curve of cause-of-death profile reflect picture of mortality and health circumstances of a country as it postulates that causes of death are different at different transition phases and in different age-sex groups of the population. In India, only a few studies had been carried out to understand the dynamics of causes of death. This study attempts to measure mortality trends by different causes of death for urban population of Rajasthan by using medical certification of cause of death (MCCD) data for 1990-2014 by calculating proportion of leading causes of death to total deaths by age and sex for all these years. Results showed that there had been changes in the pattern of causes of death and age pattern of mortality. Diseases of circulatory system and diseases of the digestive system were the leading causes of death accounting for 20.6% and 3.9% share which were below the national average of 31.6% and 4.4% respectively. The proportion of deaths due to certain conditions originating in the perinatal period; certain infectious and parasitic diseases; and diseases of the respiratory system were very high (16.8%, 18.4% and 10.3% respectively) in comparison with national averages (7.2%, 11.9% and 7.8% respectively) which showed that epidemiological transition in urban population of Rajasthan is slower than that in whole India. The findings necessitates investigating the health and mortality conditions of the state’s population in detail and suggesting appropriate health policies to bring improvement in morbidity condition and order to control disease burden and to promote healthy ageing.