Returns the death rate for the age interval [Age,Age+AgeInterval). If AgeInterval is not specified then it defaults to AgeInterval=1. In terms of the survival fraction \(l(x)\) the death rate is \begin{equation} _n m_x = \frac{_n d_x}{_n L_x} \end{equation} where \(_n d_x\) is the number of deaths from Age \(x\) for AgeInterval \(n\) and \(_n L_x\) is the number of person-years lived between \(x\) and \(x+n\). The optional argument Cause is a comma-separated list of cause codes possibly prefixed by '~' to denote the complement. If MortHandle is a multiple decrement mortality and Cause is specified then the function returns the cause-specific death rate \begin{equation} _n m_{\cause x} = \frac{_n d_{\cause x}}{_n L_x}. \end{equation}
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