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Death-
Related
Statistics

TABLE 22:

FIGURE 15:

Highlights:
Tab 22/
Fig 15

• The twelve leading causes of death for British Columbia, presented in this table, are based on the categories most frequently queried at the Vital Statistics Agency. The order of leading causes shown is based on the number of deaths.

• Cancer (malignant neoplasms), cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular disease, the top three causes of death, were responsible for over sixty percent of the deaths in the province in 2000. These causes of death were the leading causes of death for males, for females, and for both genders combined.

• More than one in four deaths (27.5%) in the province in 2000 were due to cancer (7,507 deaths). The ASMR for cancer in 2000 was 15.66 deaths per 10,000 standard population.

• Cardiovascular disease was the second leading cause of death in 2000, accounting for one quarter (25.0%) of all deaths (6,827) with an ASMR of 13.21 deaths per 10,000 standard population.

• The third leading cause of death was cerebrovascular disease (2,207 deaths) causing one in twelve deaths (8.1%). The 2000 ASMR for cerebrovascular disease was 4.20 deaths per 10,000 standard population.

• Chronic lung disease was the fourth leading cause of death in 2000 for both genders combined (1,163 deaths) with an ASMR of 2.28 deaths per 10,000 standard population. Chronic lung disease was the fifth leading cause of death for males (after unintentional injury/accident) and also for females (after pneumonia/influenza).