Mortality in France reached a “historically low” level in 2023, researchers looking at public health records have concluded. The trend is linked to the drop in Covid-19 deaths, and a return to trends before the pandemic.
After three years of elevated mortality linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, France's mortality rate fell to historic lows in 2023, according to reports published Tuesday by researchers from the French public health agency, the Inserm statistics institute, and the Health Ministry’s statistics office.
A total of 637,082 people died in France in 2023, primarily from cancers and circulatory diseases.
The mortality rate dropped below 2019 levels, before Covid, which dropped to the ninth cause of death, down from the fifth cause of death in 2022, and the third in 2020.
Over a quarter of deaths in France are due to cancer, and a fifth due to cardio-neurovascular diseases, including strokes and heart failure.
Deaths caused by respiratory diseases other than Covid, including pneumonia or the flu, rose slightly in 2023, but have gone back to re-Covid levels, after falling sharply in 2020 and 2021, at the height of the pandemic.
Mortality higher in overseas territories
Mortality was much higher in France’s overseas departments and territories, notably in Mayotte, where the rate is 89 percent higher than the national average.
Conversely, mortality is 15 percent lower in the Paris region, compared to the national average Île-de-France region.
The disparities could be linked to economic and territorial inequalities in access to healthcare.
Mortality is higher in rural areas and lower in and around large cities.
(with AFP)
