Causes of Deaths

Understanding the main causes of death in Grampian helps identify what the key health challenges being faced by the population are and informs the most appropriate public health strategies to target them.

Figure 46 summarises the top 4 causes of death in Grampian from 2017-2024 and how these have changed over time. The top 4 cause of death groupings: Malignant Neoplasms, Heart Disease, Dementia & Alzheimer’s Disease and Cerebrovascular Disease account for around two thirds of all deaths in Grampian. Whilst the death rate shows some fluctuation each year for these causes, there appears to be a rise in dementia and Alzheimer’s deaths (which is not unsurprising as people are living longer), a fall in cerebrovascular disease, and similar rates of both malignant neoplasms and cardiovascular disease.

Figure 46 – Top 4 main groups of causes of death for Grampian (2017-2024). Click on the image to make it bigger.

When we look at individual causes of death in 2024 by gender (Figure 47 & 48), acute myocardial infarction and Malignant Neoplasm of Bronchus and Lung were the two most common causes of death for both males and females. However, the relative contribution of each cause to the overall profile of causes of death for males and females was slightly different. For males, acute myocardial infarction was the number one cause and was proportionately larger than for malignant neoplasms (bronchus and lung, unspecified). For females, malignant neoplasms (bronchus and lung, unspecified) was the number one cause, closely followed by acute myocardial infarction, vascular dementia and dementia unspecified.

These differences in profiles of deaths are important to consider particularly in relation to an ageing population with proportionately more females, who will spend proportionately more years in bad health.

Figure 47 – Top 20 causes of death in males. Click on the image to make it bigger.

Figure 48 – Top 20 causes of death in females. Click on the image to make it bigger.

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