Adjustment often is performed on rates or relative risks, commonly because of differing age distributions in populations that are being compared.
Examples are adjustment by regression analysis and by standardization.
The mathematical procedure commonly used to adjust rates for age differences is direct or indirect standardization. The average number of patients in a facility on any day divided by the number of days in the reporting calendar year. For hospital patients this statistic may be the rate of patients dying prior to discharge from hospital. The rate of any demographic or vital event that is based on an entire population, generally the annual births or deaths per 100,000 total population. The number of live births per 100,000 women age 15-44 years in a given year.