CAUSES of DEATH
These are the things people are most likely to die from in each age range
SUICIDE remains the leading cause of death in young people, new figures have revealed.
It was responsible for 16.2% of deaths in boys aged between five and 19 in 2017, up from 15.2% the previous year.
Suicide was also responsible for 13.3% of deaths of girls in the same age-range.
That figure was also up from 2016, when it stood at 9.6%
Suicide remained the leading cause of death for both men and women aged between
20-34, too. It accounted for 23.7% of men’s deaths in this age range, and 14.9% of women’s deaths.
The reason that suicide accounts for such a large proportion of deaths in young people is likely because most people in this age range are otherwise physically fit and healthy.
Suicide was also the leading cause of death in men aged 35-49 (11.1%), while for women it was breast cancer (13.2%).
As our age increases, our cause of death is increasingly likely to be related to a disease process.
For example, lung cancer caused 10.3% of all deaths of women aged 65-79, while heart disease was the leading cause of death for men (15.0%) in the same age range.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease was recorded as causing 15.1% of deaths for men aged 80 and older, as well as 23.2% of deaths of women aged 80 and older.
Deaths due to dementia and Alzheimer’s remain the biggest killers overall for the third year in a row in England and Wales, accounting for 12.7% of all deaths registered in 2017.
The biggest killers in the youngest age group fluctuate more due to the small number of deaths at these ages.
In 2017, congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities remained the leading cause of death for both boys and girls aged one to four.
However, this accounted for a smaller proportion of deaths in 2017 (11.0%), when compared with 2016 (14.9%).
Ruth Sutherland, chief executive of charity Samaritans, said: “Suicide is complex and there’s never a single reason why a person chooses to take their own life.
“A range of factors are involved, both internal and external, as well as personal characteristics and life events, usually relating back over many months or years. “These figures seem to reflect the national picture of increasing rates of suicide in young people aged 15-19 in recent years. We need to monitor this trend and understand more about why young people are taking their own lives, so that resources and expertise can be directed at those who are most at risk. “There has been a lot of progress in producing suicide data in recent years. We believe that striving for more realtime data is one way to help develop effective suicide prevention measures and respond to any emerging trends more quickly.”