In addition to examining cause of deaths with respect to individual causes, it is also meaningful to look at the distribution of deaths across the major categories. Deaths are collated according to the nineteen major cause categories of the ICD-10 system.
As with the previous year’s distribution pattern, “Diseases of the circulatory system”, “Neoplasms” and “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” were the three leading major categories for adult females in 2004. They had the following respective contributions: 2,561 (38.8%), 1,250 (18.9%) and 1,180 (17.9%); percentages being of the total number of adult female deaths. In 2003 these categories also led with: 2,614 (37.8%), 1,222 (17.7%) and 1,087 (15.7%). For the “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” category, the total is elevated mainly due to the presence of Diabetes mellitus in the category.
The top three major categories for adult female deaths accounted for 4,991 or 75.6% of all adult female deaths in 2004. For the previous year, they accounted for 4,923 or 71.2%.
TABLE 15e: ADULT FEMALE DEATHS SHOWING MAJOR CATEGORIES BY CAUSE AND AGE (5-100 YEARS) FOR 2004
The corresponding data for adult male deaths was similar in that the three leading categories were the same. Their contributions were as follows: “Diseases of the circulatory system” with 2,275 (33.2%), “Neoplasms” with 1,548 (22.6%) and “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” with 692 (10.1%). The two leading major categories were the same for the previous year: “Diseases of the circulatory system” with 2,317 (31.3%) and “Neoplasms” with 1,638 (22.2%). The third leading category, however, was “Diseases of the respiratory system” with 629 (8.5%).
The three leading major categories combined totalled 4,515 or 65.9% of all adult male deaths. Previously it had been 4,584 or 61.9%.
TABLE 15f: ADULT MALE DEATHS SHOWING MAJOR CATEGORIES BY CAUSE AND AGE (5-100 YEARS) FOR 2004
The combined data for adult males and females yielded the same results for the three leading cause of deaths. “Diseases of the circulatory system” were attributed to 4,836 (35.9%), “Neoplasms” with 2,798 (20.8%) and “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” with 1,872 (13.9%). This is comparable to the previous year’s values of 4,931 (34.4%), 2,860 (20.0%) and 1,711 (11.9%) respectively.