While this is an easy measure to compute, it is also an easy one to misinterpret. For example, the proportional mortality for accidental deaths may be greater for young people when compared to the elderly population. Nevertheless, death rates from accidents is higher among the elderly population simply because of the numerical impact of the large number of deaths from all causes among the elderly population.

Proportional mortality is very useful in occupational studies for measuring the relative importance of a specific cause of death. Unfortunately, one may not necessarily have an essential number - the population in the denominator. Thus, it does not provide a reliable population estimate as does the cause-specific death rate, it is nevertheless useful in making preliminary assessments when denominator data are unavailable.