engleski

Life expectancy in Croatia in terms of eliminating certain causes of death

Recent decades in Croatia are marked by a gradual reduction in age-specific mortality and a constantly progressing life expectancy. Eurostat data show that between 2000 and 2013 men and women have gained, respectively, 3.3 and 2.6 years of life expectancy at birth. However, with decreasing levels of adult mortality in Croatia, life tables dealing only with all-cause mortality are losing their usefulness as an indicator of population health. In this paper, we present an overview of trends and patterns in causes of death in Croatia. We focus on leading causes of death: diseases of circulatory system and malignant neoplasms. According to the official data published by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, these two account for approximately three quarters of all causes of death in the country. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the effect of eradicating certain groups of diseases on age-specific probabilities of dying. Moreover, we explore which age groups contributed the most to life extension in Croatia, separately for men and women. The effect of eliminating certain groups of diseases as causes of death is estimated using a multiple-decrement approach. Life table calculations are based on the 2011 mid-year population estimates and deaths recorded during the period 2010-2012. Our results measure the impact of eliminating leading causes of death on overall life expectancy in Croatia. The gain in life expectancy is shown to be the largest when the diseases of circulatory system as the cause of death are eliminated. The second highest influence is that of eliminating malignant neoplasms as the cause of death. Eradication of other causes of death is shown to have a much smaller impact on life expectancy. The analysis of changes in life expectancy, conducted by the application of Arriaga’s decomposition method (with results provided by the European Commission), reveals that male life expectancy at birth increased during the last two decades mostly as a result of mortality reduction in the age group 60-69, while the largest contribution to reduced female mortality may be found in the age group 70-79. To draw a comparison, in western European countries, the largest gains in life expectancy at birth for men are attributable to mortality reduction in age group 70-79, while the corresponding age group for women is 80+. Such a development can probably be expected in Croatia as well. As for policy implications, we may argue that the results of our analysis indicate the importance of health promotion and interventions regarding the reduction of the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, which could lead to a morbidity compression, especially in advanced, older ages.

life expectancy ; causes of death ; Croatia

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