As with morbidity, tuberculosis mortality can also been evaluated cross-sectionally and by birth cohort as in this example for males in Switzerland.
The dotted blue lines represent the cross-sectional age-specific death rates from tuberculosis, the full red lines the mortality experience within birth cohorts. Following tuberculosis morbidity, mortality also strikes young adults in every birth cohort.
Reliable mortality data are available in Switzerland only since 1901. The birth cohort contour approach allows, however, to look much further into the past. It shows that tuberculosis mortality has been declining in every cohort since at least 1836. The shape of the curves also suggests that mortality must have been very high in young age groups in those early birth cohorts.
