(Montreal) Life expectancy at birth in the country fell by 0.1 years in 2021, according to new mortality data released by Statistics Canada on Monday.
Posted at 5:35 p.m.
The federal agency announced that life expectancy in Canada fell for the second year in a row, from 81.7 years to 81.6 years.
This slight decrease – smaller than that of 2019-2020 – is “entirely” due to men whose life expectancy at birth fell by 0.2 years, while it increased by 0.1 years for women.
For women in Quebec, the increase was slightly more pronounced (+1.0 year), with life expectancy rising to 84.58 years in 2021.
Statistics Canada also reports a 1% increase in mortality in the country from 2020 to 2021, a situation also attributed primarily to men.
An increase of 2.5% was calculated for this part of the population, while a decrease of 0.5% was recorded for women.
“The largest increase in male deaths compared to 2020 was recorded in the 45-64 age group (+4.2%), while female deaths in the same age group decreased by 0.2%. ‘ Statistics Canada said in a press release.
The federal agency also observed a 1.7% increase in mortality among men aged 65 and over, but a 0.9% decrease among women in the same age group.
While some provinces saw an increase in deaths, the situation was rather the opposite in Quebec, where the largest decrease was recorded (-7.1%), followed by Manitoba (-3.3%) and Nunavut (-1 .9%).
In 2021, a total of 311,640 deaths were recorded in Canada. The two leading causes of death were cancer and heart disease, for both men and women.
Cancer accounted for more than a quarter of deaths, up 2% from the previous year. Heart disease accounted for 17.7% of deaths, up 1.6%.
Third is accidental deaths, which were higher in 2021 than in 2020 due to increases in drug overdoses and fatal falls.
More than 19,000 accidental deaths were registered, which corresponds to 6.2% of all deaths. According to Statistics Canada, overdoses increased by 32.9% in 2021.
COVID-19 was the fourth leading cause of death, although it claimed fewer lives. More than 14,000 people lost their lives to the virus in 2021, compared to more than 16,000 the year before.
However, Statistics Canada notes that COVID-19 has hit younger age groups harder than in the first year of the pandemic.
“In 2021, the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19 among people under the age of 65 more than doubled to 2,602. The majority (65.8%) of this increase was attributable to men,” says -your.
Other causes of death are stroke or cerebrovascular diseases, chronic diseases of the lower respiratory tract, diabetes mellitus and Alzheimer’s.
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, influenza and pneumonia complete the table of the ten most common causes of death.