This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources.
The results presented in this publication are based on figures presented in the deaths chapter of the CSO's 2021 Vital Statistics Annual Report.
Address data relating to deaths was geocoded to Local Electoral Area (LEA).
The linkage and analysis was undertaken by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for statistical purposes in line with the Statistics Act, 1993 and the CSO Data Protocol [1] .
All figures in this report are classified by year of occurrence.
Deaths are classified to the World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) International Classification of Diseases, Version 10 (ICD10).
The Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) has been defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as
(a) the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death
or
(b) the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury.
From 1st January 2018 the CSO is using IRIS software to assign the UCOD. IRIS is a European developed automated coding software, endorsed by Eurostat and is maintained by the IRIS institute and all W.H.O. updates to the ICD-10 classification are included according to the WHO timelines.
Inquest deaths are coded manually due to the nature of the reporting of these cases. The difficulty lies in automatically assigning a verdict from a broad range of verdicts open to a Coroner or jury which include accidental death, misadventure, suicide, open verdict, natural causes (if so found at inquest) and in certain circumstances, unlawful killing.
Crude and Standardised deaths per 100,000 of population is calculated based on the population counts derived from Irish Population Estimates from Administrative Data (IPEADS) 2021.
This differs from the population estimates which are utilised in all other Vital Statistics publications. Per 1,000 of population, the crude death rate based on IPEADS would be 6.6, while utilising the current population estimates, the death rate would be 6.9, a difference of 0.3.
A difference is to be expected given both figures are based on two distinct concepts. The reasoning for utilsing IPEADs figures in this publication, is that it is the only source available for LEA population estimates for intercensal years.
Deaths that occur in the State should be registered within 3 months of the date thereof, particularly in the case of a natural cause of death. However, all deaths attributable to external causes are referred to the Coroner's Court. As such, a lag can occur as to when these deaths are registered with the General Register Office (GRO), and in some cases they can be registered much later than the 22 month deadline to produce the CSO's Vital Statistics Annual Reports.
Therefore, the figures presented within the CSO's Annual Report should be considered a point in time estimate of deaths, and will potentially be subject to increase as further late registered deaths are lodged with the General Register Office (GRO), and processed by the CSO.
Both crude death rates and age standardised death rates are presented in this publication to allow a fairer comparison of deaths across Irish Local Electoral Areas. Below provides more information as to how these are calculated.
Crude death rate (CDR): The number of deaths divided by the total population at that age (or age-group), multiplied by 100,000.
Standardised death rates: The (age) standardised death rate is a weighted average of age-specific mortality rates. The weighting factor is the age distribution of a standard reference population. The standardised death rate in this publication is calculated using the standard reference population as presented in IPEADS. The age groups utilised for standardisation are 0-34, 35-64 and 65+.
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