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Definition of death rate
: the ratio between deaths and individuals in a specified population and time
Examples of death rate in a Sentence
There was a decline in the country's death rate after its health care improved.
Lung cancer death rates are up.
The death rate from accidents is rising.
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Recent Examples on the Web Between 2003 and 2006, there was a death rate of 0.62 per 100 reported fires in one- and two-family dwellings with smoke alarms in the U.S., according to Milke.
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Mary Grace Keller, baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll, "Sykesville fire: Investigators ‘confident’ smoke alarms weren’t present. The state could be responsible.," 15 Nov. 2019 Shortly after China reached India’s current level of development, its death rate from air pollution began to fall.
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The Economist, "India’s toxic smog is a common affliction in middle-income countries," 9 Nov. 2019 Check out the video above to see why Black women need to be concerned with the death rates of breast cancer.
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Danielle Young, Essence, "Breast Cancer Is Killing Black Women," 29 Oct. 2019 Yet a 2019 study found that giving children the drug cut their death rate by two-thirds and halved the pain crises that are common in sickle cell disease, caused by misshapen red blood cells that cannot flow through blood vessels.
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Sharon Begley, STAT, "NIH and Gates Foundation launch effort to bring genetic cures for HIV, sickle cell disease to world’s poor," 23 Oct. 2019 For African Americans between the ages of 45 and 54, the death rates from overdoses more than doubled, going from 19.3 to 41.9 per 100,000 people between 2015 and 2017.
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Jen Christensen, CNN, "The changing face of the US opioid epidemic: Middle-aged black adults see rise in deaths," 31 Oct. 2019 Even though white women are diagnosed with breast cancer at higher rates, Black women’s death rates from breast cancer are higher.
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Danielle Young, Essence, "Breast Cancer Is Killing Black Women," 29 Oct. 2019 The death rate from overdoses is now 65 percent higher in Appalachia than in the rest of the country.
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BostonGlobe.com, "Beyond the Sacklers: Free-trade policies contributed to the opioid epidemic - The Boston Globe," 12 Oct. 2019 New Hampshire ranked the fourth-highest state in the per capita death rate from opioid overdoses in 2017, according to federal government data.
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Author: Christopher Rowland, Anchorage Daily News, "Purdue Pharma family profits from sale of resorts in regions plagued by opioid crisis," 30 Sep. 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'death rate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for death rate
The first known use of death rate was in 1849
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