This is a demographic study of stroke mortality. It undertakes to explore the potential biases associated with the assessment of age-specific death rate trends based on stroke deaths during the period 1950 to the present. Trends by sex, race, and specific ICDA categories of stroke for these age-specific groupings will be produced and assessed. The limitations of the data, the underlying assumptions of the analysis, and the implications of the findings will be considered available on multiple causes of death, an analysis will be undertaken to compare these more complete data with the primary cause of death data which have been used heretofore.