Preventable premature deaths in Finland annually cause the loss of 170 000 years of life

Background

In 2016 an EU-funded international study of premature deaths and their causes was conducted in 8 Northern Dimension (ND) partnership and associated countries (Belarus, Estonia, Germany, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden). The aim of the study was to examine the present situation and trends in preventable premature loss of life in countries sharing the same geographical area, but having considerable differences in history and social and economic development. By comparing the inter-country differences and similarities in premature mortality, the ultimate aim was to identify practices in health promotion, disease prevention and treatment methods, and hence promote health in all policies, and motivate national health systems for better performance.

Methods

Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) is a method to examine premature avoidable mortality which combines the number of deaths with the age of dying. In the present study, deaths before the age of 70 years were considered premature. The data consisted of the rates of premature deaths in 2003, 2009 and 2013. PYLL rates were age-standardized using the standard OECD populations from 1980, expressed as a sum of all deaths per 100 000 person-years.

Results

In all participating countries the number of lost human years had declined from 2003 to 2013. Biggest premature losses of life years were in 2013 in Belarus with 9851/100,000, and the least in Sweden with 2511/100,000. In Finland the loss was 3115/100,000, which means a total of 170,000 life years. For women in Finland the lost years were about the same as in Sweden, but for men the losses were higher. In the whole ND area most premature losses were due to external causes of death, second-most cancers, and third-most cardiovascular diseases. Also alcohol was an important cause of premature death. Country-specific differences in alcohol-related losses were at most over 10-fold, and here Finland ranked for alcohol-related losses on the worse side of the ND average. Finnish men’s PYLL rates for alcohol-related losses were 7 times those of Swedish men, and in Finnish women they were 5 times higher than in Swedish women.

Conclusions

In inter-country PYLL comparison Finland ranked favourably in prevention of premature mortality for cancers and cardiovascular diseases. Improvements are needed to combat suicide and alcohol-related deaths. The difference between Finnish male and female total PYLL-rates was considerable.