It's unwise to use data from old issues of Heart and Stroke Statistical Update to construct mortality trends. A death rate is a ratio between mortality and population. This is the most widely used measure for determining the overall health of a community. Unless mortality for a given disease is compared to the affected population, no conclusions can be reached. National death rates are usually computed per 100,000 population.
Crude rates are simply the ratio of total deaths to total population for any given year.
A more meaningful and informative death rate is the specific rate. It lets you look at well-defined subgroups of the total population. Age-adjusted rates are used mainly to compare the rates of two or more specific communities, or the nation as a whole, over time. However, statistics based on both the 1940 and 2000 standard are provided. Those for 2000 are shown in red in the 2000 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update and in bold in this Inquiries Guide and in the Biostatistical Fact Sheets.