Diseases of the circulatory system were the leading cause of medically certified deaths across India in 2023, a report released this week by the Office of the Registrar General of India said. These diseases accounted for 36.4% of all medically certified deaths in the country, according to the “Annual Report on Medical Certification of Cause of Death, 2023” of the RGI.
However, the figure was four percentage points lower than data reported in 2022, when over 40% of certified deaths were because of these diseases.
The report looks at causes of deaths that have been medically certified out of the total registered deaths across the country. For 2023, the report noted that 22% of all deaths registered in the Civil Registration System had been medically certified, which was 0.3 percentage points below that of the previous year (2022).
According to the report, diseases of the circulatory system were the leading cause of death in medically certified cases, with diseases of pulmonary circulation or other heart diseases causing more than half of the deaths. A breakdown by age showed that deaths due to circulatory system diseases were highest for people aged above 70 years, with the diseases accounting for more than one-third of the deaths. People aged between 55 and 64 years had the second highest incidence of deaths due to diseases of the circulatory system.
However, the report noted that in age cohorts starting from 15 years of age, diseases of the circulatory system were the leading cause of death reported.
The report said that in the age group of 15-24 years, over 21% of certified deaths were caused by this. The same was the case for age groups of 25-34 years (27.8%), 35-44 years (33.1%), and those above 45 years as well. In fact, the report notes that deaths due to diseases of the circulatory system for those above 45 years represented over 80% of all such certified deaths in the country for 2023.
The release of the data comes amid academic journals reporting an increase in heart attacks among younger people in India over the past two to three years.
In the latest report, Priyanka Paul et al. quoted Indian Heart Association data that half of all heart attacks in Indian men occur under the age of 50. While discussing the certified deaths due to circulatory system diseases, the report said, “The age distribution under this cause group is in consonance with the general epidemiology of Circulatory System Death, which increases with age.”
According to the data on circulatory system deaths, in the age group of 70 years and above, more women died from such diseases than men by over 10 percentage points. But in all other age groups, the incidence of deaths due to these diseases was similar in both genders or less likely in women than men.
It further noted that after this, the most common cause of death was diseases of the respiratory system, which contributed to a little over 11.5% of all medically certified deaths for the year. Other common causes of death listed in the report included infectious and parasitic diseases, which were responsible for over 8% of all certified deaths.
Causes such as diseases of the digestive system, neoplasms, diseases of the Genitourinary system, injuries, and external factors, as well as conditions arising during the perinatal period, accounted for approximately 4% each of the total medically certified deaths in India for 2023. The report also noted that about 11.9% of the certified deaths were caused by symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical findings that had not been classified elsewhere.
The report further noted that the medical certification of cause of deaths occurs in different States and UTs with different levels of efficiency, noting that only Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Delhi, Goa, Lakshadweep and Puducherry are medically certifying more than half of registered deaths.
Among these, Goa is the only State across the country that has managed to report 100% medical certification of all registered deaths.