General mortality

1. Key messages

2. A mortality peak is observed end of 2021

A heatwave mortality peak was observed in 2019. In 2020, mortality peaks were observed from March to April, and from the end of October to the end of the year. These peaks can be explained by the COVID-19 epidemic. An additional peak was observed during summer in Augustus, caused by higher temperatures.

In 2021, a mortality peak was observed at the end of the year. This can be explained by the COVID-19 epidemic.

More information about excess mortality can be found on the website of the Belgian Mortality Monitoring (Be-MOMO).

3. Mortality rates

Age-adjusted mortality rates are decreasing

In 2021, 112,291 deaths were observed in Belgium.

The crude mortality rate decreased in 2021 to 972 per 100,000 inhabitants, after a jump in 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic (1102 per 100,000). The crude mortality rate was a bit higher in men (996 per 100,000) than in women (949 per 100,000). After adjustment for age, a 48% higher mortality rate is observed in men (1138 per 100.000) as compared to women (769 per 100,000) in 2021.

Over the last two decades, the age-adjusted mortality rate declined until 2019; a 40% decrease in men and a 28% decrease in women are observed between 2000 and 2019. In 2020, it has raised due mainly to the COVID-19 epidemic and reached 1058 per 100,000 (a 16% increase in men and 15% in women compared to 2019), the highest mortality rate since 2008. In 2021, the age-adjusted mortality rate in men was still higher than in 2019 while in women it was similar to 2019.

Age-adjusted mortality rates are lower in the Flemish region

Among men in 2021, the age-adjusted mortality rate was 27% and 16% higher respectively in the Walloon Region and in the Brussels Capital Region as compared to the Flemish Region; among women, it was 25% and 11% higher respectively in the Walloon Region and in the Brussels Capital Region as compared to the Flemish Region.

During the year 2020, the regional differentials in mortality increased. Among men, the age-adjusted mortality rate was 35% in the Walloon Region and 32% higher in the Brussels Capital Region than in the Flemish Region, and among women the mortality rate was 29% and 21% higher in the Walloon Region and in the Brussels Capital Region than in the Flemish Region. The COVID-19 mortality rates observed in the epidemiological surveillance [2] have shown the COVID-19 specific mortality rates to be higher in the Walloon Region and in the Brussels Capital Region, which can explain the increase of the regional differentials in all-cause mortality.

4. Read more

View the metadata for this indicator

Statbel: General mortality

Statbel: Open data

Sciensano: Standardized Procedure for Mortality Analysis (SPMA)

Sciensano: Belgian Mortality Monitoring (Be-MOMO)

Background

Mortality is a traditional health indicator, actually better understood as a measure of “non-health”. Although quantifying irreversible events, the mortality analysis provides unique information for public health guidance, like the importance of severe health problems, their evolution over time, and some insights on their determinants (i.e. road security and smoking behavior). It is also a health indicator that has a long tradition and is measured with more validity than any other. Indeed, death is an unambiguous event, that used to be systematically registered in vital registration systems of most countries for more than one century.

The crude mortality rate is the number of deaths in a given year divided by the population under study. This indicator is not well suited for health monitoring; mortality is indeed strongly related to age. As a consequence, aging populations are facing rising crude mortality rates even if the health state is improving.

Therefore, comparisons of mortality indicators between population groups or years should always use estimators that are adjusted for differences in age composition between the groups. In this report, the age-adjusted mortality rates are used, with the European Standard Population 2010 (ESP 2010) [3] as a reference.

In this section, we describe all-cause mortality. The specific causes of death are described in the section on cause of death.

Definitions

Crude mortality rate

The crude mortality rate is the number of deaths registered in the country divided by the corresponding population.

Age-standardized mortality rate

The age-standardization is a weighted average of age-specific mortality rates to remove variations arising from differences in age structure between population groups.

References

1. Statbel. Nombre de décès par jour, sexe, âge, région, province et arrondissement. https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/open-data/nombre-de-deces-par-jour-sexe-arrondissement-age
2. I. Peeters, M. Vermeulen,N. Bustos Sierra, F. Renard, J. VanderHeyden, A. Scohy, T. Braeye, N. Bossuyt, F. Haarhuis, K. Proesmans, C. Vernemmen, M. Vanhaverbeke. Surveillance of COVID-19 mortality in Belgium, epidemiology and methodology during 1st and 2nd wave (March 2020 - 14 February 2021). Brussels, Belgium : Sciensano. 2021, September. https://covid-19.sciensano.be/fr/covid-19-situation-epidemiologique
3. Pace M, Giampaolo L, Glickman M, Zupanic T. Revision of the European Standard Population Report of Eurostat's Task Force. Luxembourg; 2013.

Please cite this page as: Sciensano. Mortality and Causes of Death: Causes of death, Health Status Report, 27 Jan 2023, Brussels, Belgium, https://www.healthybelgium.be/en/health-status/mortality-and-causes-of-death/general-mortality-by-cause