The Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 (GBD 2016), coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), estimated the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors for 195 countries and territories and at the subnational level for a subset of countries.

In GBD, an essential stage in the process for producing estimates for adult mortality rates (or 45q15, the probability of death between exact ages 15 and 60) involves assessing the completeness of adult death reporting from vital registration and censuses. In this evaluation, raw data points from vital registration and sample registration are adjusted using formal demographic techniques called death distribution methods (DDM) and then smoothed to generate full time-series estimates of adult death reporting completeness. This dataset contains a list of data input sources used in the generation of DDM estimates for adult mortality.