The Latin American Human Mortality Database: An Emerging Source of Mortality Data for Developing Countries

Bernardo L. Queiroz, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Piedad Urdinola, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

The Latin America Human Mortality Database (LAHMD) is a joint project of Bernardo L. Queiroz (UFMG) and B. Piedad Urdinola (UNAL). It is inspired in the Human Mortality Database and provide a variety of mortality data collected from various external sources for Latin America. In contrast to the HMD, the LAHMD comprises data considering additional dimensions not covered in the HMD (regions of a country and causes of death). The LAHMD aims at including a wide range of countries in Latin America and covering the longest possible time periods. The data in the LAHMD are provided in the standardized format and can be easily accessed. The LAHMD website is found at www.lamortalidad.org. The database contains mortality data for Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru This paper describes the LAHMD, computational procedures used for data harmonization as well as its structure, and presents an evaluation of mortality data.