Death registrations in CAR nearly hit 8 thousand in 2015

• The Cordillera region had registered 7,909 deaths for the year 2015. Out of these, 4,611 were males and 3,298 were females.
• Infant (children below 1 year old) deaths comprised 3.2 percent in the total registered deaths, wherein 149 of the infants were males and 108 were females. Meanwhile, deaths of children aged 1 year and older but below 15 years old were about 2.8 percent of the total registered deaths.
• Recorded death of males was higher than females until the age group 75-79 years. By age groups and sex, a high percentage is seen among females of aged 85 years and over with 671 deaths or 8.5 percent of the total registered (Figure 1).

Figure 1. 2015 Age-sex distribution of 2015 deaths registered in CAR using ANACONDA*

Pneumonia is leading cause of deaths aged five years old and over

• Based on all the registered deaths in 2015, pneumonia is the leading cause of death comprising 10.0 percent of the fatalities of age five years old and over. It is also the top cause of female deaths with12.5 percent. On the other hand, acute myocardial infarction is recorded with most number of deaths (440 fatalities) among males.
• Following pneumonia in the top causes of male and female deaths were acute myocardial infarction (9.5 percent) and stroke (4.5 percent). These were also the top causes of death by sex, joined with intracerebral hemorrhage, other cerebrovascular diseases, hypertensive and chronic ischaemic heart disease also as top causes common for both groups (Table 1).

Table 1. Top common causes of deaths for males and females 5 years old and over,
CAR: 2015

• Among male deaths, the following were also included in the leading causes but unique in the group: other chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (also known as COPD), respiratory tuberculosis, and motor- and nonmotor-vehicle accidents. Among the female counterparts, malignant neoplasm of breast, diabetes mellitus and senility were top causes of death unique to the group.

Deaths of young children account for 4.3 percent of registered fatalities

• There were 338 registered deaths of children below five years in 2015 in the Cordilleras. The top causes of these deaths were infant deaths due to respiratory distress and bacterial sepsis of the newborn, contributing 8.6 percent each.
• Other leading causes of deaths among young children were disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight (8.0 percent), pneumonia (7.4 percent) and other congenital malformations of heart (6.2 percent). Respiratory distress of the newborn the was top cause among male young children deaths (10.4 percent), while disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight and pneumonia caused significant number of female young children fatalities (8.9 percent each) as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Leading causes of deaths among male and female children below five years old,
CAR: 2015

Other mortality data

• With the population count of the region of 1.7 million in 2015, the crude death rates (CDR) of Cordillera region was estimated to 5.2 deaths per 1,000 male population and 3.9 deaths per 1,000 female population.
• Across age groups, mortality among infants or children below one year 8.44 deaths per 1,000 male infant population and 6.38 deaths per 1,000 female infant population (expressed per 100,000 in Table 3). The mortality rate dipped as age increased until 10-14 years old and picked up by age 15-19 years old and elevated as the person aged.
• The age specific death rate was higher in males than its female counterparts and was consistent across age groups. As a result, the sex ratio of age specific mortality rate remained above 1.0, which peaked in the age groups 15-19 up to 25-29 years old at 3.2. This means there were about three times more male than female deaths in these ages.

Figures 2. Age-specific death rates by sex, CAR: 2015

Figures 3. Sex ratio of age-specific mortality rate (ASMR), CAR: 2015

• The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) data of the region showed that 9.6 children died before reaching five years of age per 1,000 live births. Among male children under five years old, there were 10.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. Under-five mortality among female children, on the other hand, was lower at 8.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.
• Using the U5MR data with the population count from 2015 Census of Population resulted to life expectancy at birth of 72.0 years for males and 78.8 years for females in the Cordilleras.

Table 3. Selected CAR mortality data* by age group and sex, CAR: 2015

Technical Notes