THE UDERLYING CAUSES OF DEATH WITH MORTALITY INDICES IN SLOVENIA IN 2001

Abstract

Background. Mortality rates are one of the basic measures for population health estimation. The mortality data in Slovenia are collected according to well-defined methodology. Thus our results can be easily compared with the results of other countries. The purpose of this article is to display the most important causes of death with emphasis on premature deaths. This way the authors try to provide aggregate information to those doctors who are filling in the mortality data and those public health workers who have been designing Slovenian public health policy.Methods. The basic descriptive epidemiology methods are used to present the mortality in Slovenia in the year 2001 classified by gender, age groups and regions. Standard mortality indices were calculated: the number of deceased, crude death rate, age standardised death rate, median age at death and years of potential life lost.Results. The crude mortality rate among women is falling with time while the crude mortality rate among men is constant. The median among men is growing while among women is constant. According to analysis of combination of all mortality indices the most endangered regions in Slovenia are those of Murska Sobota and Novo mesto.The babies and preschool children die mostly because of conditions originating in perinatal period and congenital anomalies. For children after seven and adolescents the most frequent causes of death were injuries and poisoning. Suicides on the first place and traffic accidents on the second are the most frequent causes of death among young adults. Among old adults the frequency of causes of death depends on the gender: women die mostly because of breast and gastrointestinal cancer, but men because of liver diseases and ishemic heart diseases. Most frequent cause of death among elderly is cardiovascular diseases.Conclusions. The aggregate mortality data are adequate for crude population health estimation. The mortality indices in Slovenia do not change considerately with time observed. The health status of western part of Slovenia is better in comparison with the eastern part.</p