Trends in mortality due to diabetes in Brazil, 1996–2011

Background Over recent decades, Brazilian mortality registration has undergone increasing improvement in terms of completeness and quality in cause of death reporting. These improvements, however, complicate the description of mortality trends over this period. We aim to characterize the trend in diabetes mortality in Brazil and its five regions in adults (30–69 years), from 1996 to 2011 after corrections for underreporting of deaths and redistribution of ill-defined causes and “garbage codes”.