Causes of death in Finland from 2000 to 2022 – changes and turning points

Background  Mortality is one of the indisputable indicators when examining changes in public health. Our study describes the development of the most common causes of death in 2000–2022 and discusses the reasons for the observed changes.

Methods  The data were obtained from Statistics Finland. Cause-specific age-standardized mortality rates were calculated according to the ICD-10 classification and time series classification. In addition, the mortality rates was modeled using Poisson regression.

Results  Mortality rates of almost all causes of death changed in 2000–2022. Mortality from all cancers decreased slightly in both men and women; the mortality gap between men and women narrowed. Age-standardized mortality from ischemic heart disease decreased by more than 60%, and in 2022 it was the second most common cause of death. Alzheimer's disease mortality increased sixfold during the review period, and was the most common age-standardized cause of death in 2022. Suicides, poisonings, and alcohol-suicide mortality decreased. The number of preventable causes of death was 120,891, or 10.2% of deaths. Mortality decreased in a trend-like manner.

Conclusions  Changes in causes of deaths are frequent and their monitoring is essential for public health and actions affecting causes of death.