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Major and chronic diseases

Mortality

The leading causes of death in the EU are:

  • cardiovascular diseases
  • cancer
  • respiratory diseases

These diseases are often preventable – which means reliable data on causes of death can improve health policies, promote good health and reduce health inequalities.

The Commission's role is to provide policymakers and the public with useful tools to monitor mortality statistics.

Sources

Cause of death information is taken from the World Health Organization (WHO) death certificate. Eurostat collects the national and regional data and uses the WHO's International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to publish related statistics.

Data from Eurostat

Eurostat has defined a 'European Shortlist' with 65 causes of death selected from the ICD. Besides the crude death rate (CDR), Eurostat publishes:

EU funding for better analysis

Commission-funded projects to improve analysis of causes of death aim to:

  • automate data collection
  • produce indicators that will standardise mortality data at EU level and detect health inequalities