Why does the World Health Organization utilize age-standardized mortality rates?

To account for variations in population structures and enable fairer comparisons between different regions.

Population demographics vary significantly across the globe, with some regions having much older populations than others. If one were to use raw mortality numbers, an older population would naturally appear to have higher mortality rates regardless of the actual health conditions. Standardization adjusts for these age differences, allowing researchers and policymakers to compare health performance across international borders with greater accuracy, effectively neutralizing the confounding variable of population age.