Direct standardization is used to compare the moality rates between two countries. This is done because of the differences in:

Age distributions !Ref. Park 20/e, p 55,56 (19/e, p 54, I8/e, p 53)] Repeat from May 06 & Nov 06 Because of the differences in age distribution of two populations, their moality experience could not be compared by using 'crude death rate', as it lead to wrong impression. A population (say population A) with more young people would have low crude death rate than a population (population B) with more old people, thus giving an impression that population A is healthier than B, which may not be so. This confounding effect of age is removed by means of 'standardization'.