Population Growth Rate

This formula gives the net population change per individual in a population over a given time period. It works by taking the number of births and subtracting the number of deaths to find the net gain or loss, then dividing by the population size so the result is comparable across populations of different sizes. A positive value means the population is increasing, while a negative value means it is shrinking.

Use this when you need a per-capita measure of how fast a population is changing, such as in ecology, microbiology, or epidemiology. It is especially useful for comparing growth rates between groups that do not have the same starting population size.

• Forgetting to subtract deaths from births before dividing
• Using the wrong population size, such as the number of births instead of the total population
• Confusing the per-capita growth rate with the total number of new individuals