In 2022, 673,190 French people died, on average at age 79, but from what? Two studies published this Tuesday by Public Health France and Drees (the ministerial statistical service in the health and social fields) take stock.
Tumors, leading cause of death
This has already been the case every year since 2005: in 2022, tumors, in other words cancers, will once again represent the leading cause of death. They caused 171,630, or more than a quarter (25.5%) of the total.
Deaths due to tumors concern people on average younger than those from all causes combined. More than half were between 65 and 84 years old, and the median age of people who died from a tumor in 2022 is 75 years old, compared to 83 years old from all causes combined. At the same age, men are also 1.7 times more likely to be victims of tumors than women. Excess male mortality rises to 2.1 if we exclude sex-specific tumors (breast, uterus, prostate, etc.).
In detail, tumors of the trachea, bronchi and lungs are those which cause the most victims (30,896 deaths). Next come tumors of the colon, rectum and anus (16,975 deaths), then tumors of the breast (12,963 deaths) and pancreas (12,931 deaths).
Cardio-neurovascular diseases
With 140,173 deaths, cardio-neurovascular diseases (in other words strokes, myocardial infarction, heart failure, etc.) constitute the second cause of mortality in 2022 in France (20.8% of deaths). These deaths generally concern elderly people. Moreover, cardio-neurovascular diseases are becoming the leading cause of death among people aged 85 and over. The median age of death from this type of pathology is 87 years.
79.4 years on average
In total, 673,190 people died in the territory in 2022, slightly more women (50.2%) than men (49.8%).
This is more than in 2020 and 2021, two years however strongly impacted by the Covid-19 epidemic, and even than the 2015-2019 average (601,482 deaths).
The average age was 79.4 years, a little more than in 2021 (79.2 years), and also than the 2015-2019 average: 78.6 years.
Respiratory diseases
Another lesson: in 2022, deaths due to diseases of the respiratory system, excluding Covid-19, have increased significantly and thus become the third cause of mortality. They are thus the cause of 45,071 deaths (6.7% of the total), which is 24% more than in 2021. These deaths concern elderly people: half of them are 86 years old or over . This increase could be explained in particular by the two seasonal influenza epidemics 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, at the same time as the circulation of other viruses such as the respiratory syncytial virus.
Conversely, the number of deaths due to Covid-19 (41,291) decreased by almost a third in 2022 compared to 2021. Covid-19 thus becomes the fifth cause of death. This decline is undoubtedly largely explained by the achievement of high collective immunity at national and international level, thanks to broad vaccination coverage and less virulence of variants. This decline would continue last year, according to the first figures.
Accidents and suicides
Falls, poisoning, drowning… In 2022, 44,800 deaths (6.7%) are due to external causes, in other words to accidents or suicides. It is the fourth cause of death for all ages, but the second among people under 65, after tumors.
Concerning suicides more specifically, three quarters of deaths concern men, almost half of whom are under the age of 65. But the suicide mortality rate has been increasing among young women aged 19 or under since 2020, in a context of deterioration in mental health and an increase in anxiety-depressive syndromes.
