Thursday, June 27, 2024, 07:19
Diseases of the circulatory system – heart attacks, cardiac and cerebrovascular problems – and tumors remain at the top of the list of enemies for the health and survival of Riojans. This is confirmed by the report ‘Deaths according to cause of death 2023’, made public this Wednesday by the INE.
In the study, even with provisional data until the end of the year, covid has ceased to be a threat and its impact can be seen in the decrease in mortality figures in all communities and, with it, in the overall national count. In the case of La Rioja, the number of deaths was 3,234, 6.63% less than in 2022 (3,464) and 12.59% below the statistics for the first year of the pandemic (3,700 deaths), about falls in rates similar to those of the country as a whole, where the number of fatalities rose last year to 433,163, 6.72% less than in the previous year (464,417) and 12.27% lower than the record of 2020 (493,776.
The cause of death that decreased the most compared to 2022 was covid. In the community, 34 deaths were registered, which represents a drop of 71.90% compared to the 121 the previous year and 94.04% compared to the 571 deaths in 2020. The virus has gone from accounting for 15.43% of 2020 deaths to only 1.05% last year. In the State as a whole, fatalities were 7,892 in 2023 compared to 31,672 in the previous year and 74,893 in 2020. Along with the virus, a notable drop in deaths from respiratory diseases was also recorded (-10.93%), from 320 in 2022 to 285 last year in La Rioja.
Oncological pathology grows
Although in Spain as a whole, tumours were for the first time the leading cause of death, with 26.6% (+0.2%) of all deaths, above deaths from circulatory system diseases (26.5%, after a fall of 5.3%), in the community the latter once again took the top spot. Despite the slight drop in numbers, heart problems, hypertension, heart attacks and strokes again increased their weight in relation to the total number of deaths: 936 people (461 men and 475 women) died in 2023 from circulatory system diseases, which represents a percentage of 28.94% of total deaths (3,234), almost one point above the figure for 2022 (27.97%).
Very close, oncological diseases, with 835 deaths last year in the community (502 men and 333 women), and, despite being 6 less than in 2022, with its total mortality rate on the rise: 25.81% compared to to 24.27% twelve months ago. By tumors, the one that caused the most fatalities, the trachea, bronchi and lung, with 115 (85 men and 30 women) and 31 less than in 2022; followed by the pancreas, with 82 (62 more), 47 men and 35 females; the colon, with 80 (-1), 43 men and 37 women; the breast, with 47 Riojans (+5); and the prostate, with 44 Riojans, the same number as the previous year.
Despite the aforementioned decrease, respiratory diseases remain the third cause of death in the region, with a weight of 8.81% (285 deaths) of the total; above the pathologies of the nervous system and sense organs, which despite falling by 28 add another 214 deaths to the total (91 men and 123 women), half of them due to Alzheimer’s (107). In the next levels of the dramatic ranking are diseases of the digestive system, with 195, fifteen more, of which 102 corresponded to men and 93 to women; and mental and behavioral disorders, with 191 deaths (+1), with 74 males and 117 females.
Nearly five out of every 100 deaths could have been prevented by attributing them to external causes, such as falls and domestic accidents.
According to the INE statistical study, 95.34% of the deaths registered last year in La Rioja were due to diseases; The rest, 4.66%, were, therefore, avoidable deaths, those that are compiled under the heading of external causes of mortality, a chapter that also gains weight in the most dramatic records of the region and the country.
During 2023, 151 deaths from external causes were recorded in the community (17,737 in Spain), 190 fewer than a year earlier (-837 throughout the State) but thirty more than in 2020, in a section that in the last pre-pandemic year did not exceed one hundred deaths.
With traffic accidents decreasing in La Rioja –9 last year compared to 14 in 2022, 11 in 2020 and 16 the year before the pandemic– and suicides stabilized, although in tragic numbers –29 in 2023 . 18 men and 11 women – the bulk of this continuously increasing heading is due above all to accidental falls and other avoidable accidents, both at home and abroad, which have a lot to do with the unstoppable aging of the population. .
In fact, in Spain as a whole, accidental falls were the leading cause of external death last year, with 4,018 deaths (6.1% more), displacing suicides (with 3,952).
In the community, this heading decreased slightly: there were ten deaths due to accidental falls, 6 men and ten women, one less than in 2022 in a chapter that in 2020 rose to 20 and in 2019 stood at thirty. The largest regional increase was in the area of accidental drowning, submersion and suffocation, with 50 deaths, two more than a year before, of which 19 were men and 31 women. This section has skyrocketed from 3 cases in 2019 and 17 the following year. In addition, there were another 42 deaths under the label of other accidents (43 in 2022 and 14 in 2019).
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