This release 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.
Deaths per 100,000 people (Mortality) for those aged 40-64 years and living in Very Disadvantaged areas was over twice that of those living in Very Affluent areas for every year between 2017 and 2022 (see Figure 1 and Table 1).
The top two leading causes of death for those aged 40-64 years were neoplasms (benign and malignant tumours) and diseases of the circulatory system for both those living in Very Disadvantaged and Very Affluent areas between 2017 and 2022.
In 2022, the death rate per 100,000 people for White Irish Travellers aged 40-64 years was estimated at 299. This compares with 255 for the White Irish group aged 40-64 years.
The estimated death rate for White Irish Travellers aged 40-64 years is higher than that for the White Irish group for all years from 2017 to 2022.
Caution needs to be taken when drawing inferences from small numbers. This is the case for many ethnic group categories in terms of number of deaths and leading causes of death. Table 2 is based on small numbers of deaths and as a result changes over time can be volatile.
Please note, the tables on the CSO's open data portal data.cso.ie, or PxStat, that are associated with this release, provide an opportunity for researchers and the public to analyse mortality indicators and causes of death by ethnicity and deprivation in more detail.
This release reports mortality indicators by age group and gender for Ethnic and Deprivation groups. The statistics reported are Death Rates per 100,000 people (Mortality), Number of People and Number of Deaths. For simplicity and Statistical Disclosure Control purposes, population counts were rounded to the nearest 10 and death counts to the nearest five before the calculation of death rate statistics and reporting. It calculates these statistics from 2017 to 2022 using the Census of Population 2016 as the base (to allow for the time period 2017 to 2022 to be covered), which was linked with the General Register Office’s Register of Deaths (GRO data), Child Benefit data, and the Trutz-Haase Deprivation Index 2016 data. The Deprivation Index data represents each Small Area with a “Deprivation Quintile” which is one of five equally sized groups of Small Areas based on their level of deprivation (from “Very Affluent” to “Very Disadvantaged”).
Death rates per 100,000 people for “All Ages” for individual Ethnic and Deprivation groups have not been reported as comparisons can be misleading without adjustment for age.
Caution needs to be taken when drawing inferences from small numbers, such as those in some of the ethnic group categories.
The population of the ethnic groups White Irish Traveller, Black or Black Irish - African, Black or Black Irish - Any other Black Background, Asian or Asian Irish - Chinese, Asian or Asian Irish - Any Other Asian and Other including Mixed background were all less than 85,000 people, while the associated number of deaths in each group was less than 110 in 2022 (See Table 3). This results in the need for caution in interpreting mortality statistics for these groups.
Overall, there was a reduction in death rates per 100,000 people of 8.6% for the 40-64 years age cohort between 2021 and 2022, while for White Irish the reduction was 3.7%. White Irish Travellers by contrast had a reduction of 23.1%, although the figures underpinning this reduction are quite small (Table 4).
As can be expected, the populations contained in each deprivation level group are relatively similar, ranging from 886,880 to 1,057,560 in 2022 (See Table 5). The discrepancy in population sizes is due to the fact that deprivation quintiles are an area level metric and designed to have an equal number of small areas in them, not persons. Less deprived small areas tend to have larger populations, which is evidenced here.
Although death rates per 100,000 people still remain higher for the 40-64 years age cohort in Very Disadvantaged areas (370 in 2022 versus 140 in the Very Affluent group) - as can be seen in Table 6 - these areas have undergone a larger reduction in mortality rates between 2021 and 2022 (-11.9% compared with -6.7% for the Very Affluent group).
In 2022, Neoplasms and Diseases of the circulatory system are identified as the top two leading causes of death for those aged 40 - 64 years in All Ethnicities, White Irish, White Irish Traveller, and Unknown ethnic or cultural background groups (See Table 7).
In 2022, the top two leading causes of death for the 40-64 years age cohort were the same for all deprivation levels reported (See Table 8), which were: 1. Neoplasms and 2. Diseases of the circulatory system. However, we can see death rates per 100,000 people being at least double for the Very Disadvantaged groups in these categories in 2022. Neoplasms had a mortality rate of 80 in the Very Affluent group, while this was 160 in the Very Disadvantaged group. Diseases of the circulatory system were 20 versus 70, which was more than three times as high in Very Disadvantaged areas.
This analysis builds upon previous work by CSO.
Population statistics use 2016 as the base, aged forward accordingly and adjusted for birth and deaths. They do not take migration into account and as such differ slightly from official estimates. Official Population Statistics by Age and Gender can be found in the Population and Migration Estimates release.
Official cause of death statistics are available in the Deaths Occurring table (VSA35). Note: Statistics published by the CSO on deaths can vary depending on the time period of death registrations covered due to late registrations and other factors. This analysis was built using death registrations up until Quarter 3 2023.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (26 February 2025) published Mortality Indicators and Cause of Death by Deprivation and Ethnicity 2017-2022.
Commenting on the release, Tomás Kelly, Statistician, said: “In this release, the CSO was able to explore mortality by age, sex, ethnicity, and deprivation, as we have linked Cause of Death data with the Census of Population 2016 (see Introduction section for more information). As a result, we have also been able to look at the leading causes of death for different groups of people.
Overall Results
This release highlights higher death rates for people living in more disadvantaged areas. In cases, such as those aged 40-64 years, the death rates are more than twice as high for people living in the Very Disadvantaged areas compared with those living in Very Affluent areas (See Table 1). It should be noted that the population by age profile (aged 40-64) for those in Very Affluent areas is younger than that for those aged 40-64 in Very Disadvantaged areas, which to a small extent counteracts this finding.
In 2022, the death rate per 100,000 people was 370 for those in Very Disadvantaged areas aged 40-64 years compared with 138 in Affluent areas (Table 1).
When looking at the leading cause of death by deprivation area for those aged 40 to 64 years in 2022, we noted that two conditions accounted for the top causes of death regardless of where people lived. Neoplasms, which are types of tumours, and diseases of the circulatory system were the top two leading causes of death across all deprivation levels. Neoplasms relate to deaths due to tumours, which can be benign (not cancer) or malignant (cancer). Please see the Background Notes for a more detailed description of neoplasms and the leading causes of death which are based on clinically recorded attributed cause of death.”