Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in Australia



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Although reports on deaths are depressing, they can also be incredibly interesting. They reflect population health trends and help target areas of health interventions.

The latest report from the Australian Institute of Health and Wellness reveals that more than 18,000 Australians have died from coronary heart disease, or heart attacks, in 2017. Although this number is lower than in 2016, the gap was less than 500 condition the leading cause of death this year too.

The report also shows that more people are dying of dementia, their number having increased from about 13,000 to more than 13,700 in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Women were twice as likely as men in this category of deaths.

Ambulance taking a patient to hospital with heart disease.ChameleonsEye | Shutterstock

Cerebrovascular diseases, including stroke, ranked third in the list of life-threatening diseases. The next two are lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

In 2017, the death rate in Australia was 529 / 100,000 inhabitants, for a total of nearly 161,000 deaths. Two out of three deaths occurred in people aged 75 or older. In fact, the average age at death was 78 years and 85 years respectively for men and women. Most deaths in the elderly were due to heart disease, dementia and stroke.

With regard to the number of deaths, men and women were almost equally represented, the narrowest gap ever recorded in 2017, ie 180 deaths / 100,000.

The location influences the mortality rate

Among the factors that influence mortality rates, location is important. In fact, the only people whose overall mortality rate is lower than the national rate are those in large cities.

The number of premature deaths and those that could have been avoided is also higher in rural areas than in urban areas, and the most remote areas have the highest number of deaths. Preventable deaths accounted for almost half of under-75 mortality.

Mortality related to age

Age is also a determining factor in the cause of death. However, the number of deaths among young children increased from over 25% in 1907 to less than 1% in 2017. This reflects an improvement in coverage for health care, hygiene and child immunization.

Car accidents have 1 in 1 to 14 years of age, with other leading causes of death being conbad anomalies or diseases, brain or blood cancer, and drowning. In the 15 to 44 age group, suicide is unfortunately the leading cause of death, with 35% of deaths among 15-25 year olds and about 20% among 25-44 year olds. Car accidents and drug overdoses have been the cause of most of the remaining deaths in this age group. After this age, chronic diseases took a leading role.

Breast cancer is ranked fifth on the list of murderers among people aged 25 to 64, mostly among women; 3000 deaths were reported for this cause in 2017.

Trends over the last hundred years

However, overall mortality rates have dropped significantly since 1907. Mortality rates for men and their women have decreased by 76% over this period. This is observed using data on all deaths in Australia. It is known that 100 years ago, influenza was the leading cause of death in the country, killing an estimated 15,000 people in the context of the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the globe.

Life expectancy, defined as the number of years that a newborn can expect to live under current conditions, was 59 years old and 63 years old for men and women in 1917, but is now 80.5 years for men and 84.6 years for women. It has increased slightly from 2015 to 2017. However, this is about 9 and 8 years younger, respectively, for both male and female aboriginal populations, even at this time.

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