Health Policy Paper Series No. 15: A retrospective and prospective assessment of mortality in the Republic of Moldova (2014)

The main purpose of this study was to assess the national mortality data of the Republic of Moldova using standard approaches. The expected outcome was the generation of nationally and nternationally comparable mortality indicators and a model for performance monitoring that could be used to inform policy development.

The results of the study highlight several sound approaches to monitoring mortality: (1) to assess trends over time, it is necessary to standardize mortality measures in order to account for population shifts; (2) to assess mortality burden, it is important to rank causes of death by years of life lost in addition to absolute numbers of deaths; and (3) to set and monitor future targets, projected scenarios must include plausible assumptions about expected changes in mortality and in the population.