The introductionof new technology has made it possible to study multiple causes of death asopposed to mortality statistics based only on the underlying cause of death.The knowledge of all diseases that contribute to one death allows the assessmentof the importance of causes that frequently do not appear in mortality statistics,because of those diseases that are not characterized as the underlying cause.An example is the death by myocardial infarction of a person that also has diabetesmellitus. The idea of producing mortality statistics according to multiple causesis not new. However, it is not a routine, although several studies have demonstratedits advantages. Among the advantages is the possibility of finding new associationsof diseases and to know the nature of the injury according to the type of accidentor violence. The utilization of computers and specific programs for producingmortality statistics enables multiple-cause statistical calculations, a practicethat should be stimulated.
