Who dies of what in Europe before the age of 65 - Issue number 67/2009 - Products Statistics in Focus

High life expectancy but large differences in mortality

An Atlas on Mortality in the European Union has just been published. This Statistics in Focus highlights important causes of avoidable mortality below age 65, namely ischaemic heart disease, lung cancer, alcohol-related mortality, suicide, transport accidents, cervical cancer and AIDS. These causes of death are described at NUTS 2 level in 2002-2004. In the EU, men lost twice as many life years before age 65 as women. In the Baltic regions, men lost more than twice the number of years as compared to the EU-27 average. The lowest mortality in women before age 65 was found in the Mediterranean regions of Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Greece.