In the European Union (EU), almost 1.7 million persons aged less than 75 died in 2014. Of those, more than 560 000 (or 33.3% of total deaths) could be considered as untimely. In other words, 1 death out of 3 in the EU could have been avoided in the light of medical knowledge and technology.
Heart disease main category
Heart attacks (178 000 avoidable deaths or 32% of total avoidable deaths of persons aged less than 75) accounted by far for the largest share of potentially avoidable deaths in the EU. They were followed by strokes (almost 91 000 deaths, or 16%), colorectal cancers (66 500 or 12%), breast cancers (50 100 or 9%), hypertensive diseases (28 700 or 5%) and pneumonia (22 800 or 4%).
Largest shares of avoidable deaths in Romania and Latvia, lowest in France
The proportions of potentially avoidable deaths through optimal health care vary considerably between EU Member States.
The highest shares of avoidable deaths were registered in Romania (47.6%) and Latvia (47.0%), followed by Lithuania (45.3%), Bulgaria (43.2%) and Slovakia (43.1%). On the other hand, the share was below a quarter in France (24.0%) and between 25% and 30% in Denmark (26.5%), Belgium (26.6%), Luxembourg (27.4%) and the Netherlands (27.9%).
The source dataset can be found here.
This information on avoidable deaths through optimal health care (i.e. amenable deaths) is complemented by a Eurostat article.
The concept of avoidable mortality means that certain deaths (for specific age groups and from specific diseases) could be 'avoided' – that they would not have occurred at this stage if there had been timely and effective health care in place.
The indicator on amenable mortality should be used in a global context of health system performance assessments. Assessing the performance of health care systems is of increasing importance in the EU. While the amenable mortality indicator is not meant to be a definite or unique measurement of the quality of health care in the Member States, it provides some indication of the quality and performance of healthcare policies in a country.