Brass P/F Ratio Method

The Brass P/F ratio method is the foundational technique of indirect fertility estimation, designed to correct fertility levels in populations whose vital registration is incomplete but where a census or survey reports both recent births and lifetime children ever born. It compares F — the period fertility a synthetic cohort would have accumulated by each age — with P, the average parity (children ever born) actually reported by women of that age. The ratio of the two diagnoses and corrects errors in the reported level of current fertility, yielding an adjusted total fertility rate from data too defective for direct calculation.