Key findings: P0309.3 – Mortality and causes of death in South Africa, 2022: Findings from death notifications

This report provides information on levels, trends and patterns in mortality and cause of death by socio-demographic and geographic characteristics. The mortality and cause of death indicators presented in this report are critical for measuring the health status of the South African population. The main focus of this report is on 2022 death occurrences, however, information on deaths that occurred during the period 2001 to 2021 is included to show trends. The total number of deaths recorded for 2022 was 486 041. The 2022 data show a reversal of the pattern observed in the last two years (2020 to 2021), which were dominated by COVID-19 deaths, with mortality declining by almost 22,0%. The pattern observed in 2022 shows that mortality is almost at the 2019 level.

Overall, there were more male deaths than female deaths in 2022 from infancy until age 65–69, after which there were more female than male deaths. The highest proportion of deaths were among those aged 70-74 years (8,9%) for females and 8,8% for males aged 60-64 years, while the lowest proportions were observed among those aged 5–9 and 10–14 years for both sexes. The provinces with the highest proportion of deaths were Gauteng (21,9%), KwaZulu-Natal (18,6%), and the lowest percentage of deaths was the Northern Cape (3,1%).

Almost 60,0% of deaths were due to non-communicable diseases in 2022, while communicable diseases accounted for just 28,0% of deaths. Males aged 15–29 continue to bear the brunt of deaths due to non-natural causes of death, with almost 60,0% of male deaths resulting from non-natural causes compared to only 24,0% of females in the same age group.

COVID-19 moved out of the top ten rank of leading causes of death in 2022. The top three leading causes of death in South Africa in 2022 were due to non-communicable diseases. Nine of the top ten leading causes of death were the same for both sexes, although with different rankings. Diabetes mellitus was the number one leading cause of death for both sexes, responsible for 5,2% and 8,6% of the deaths for males and females, respectively. Hypertensive diseases (8,2%) were the second underlying cause of death for females. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease moved back to the fourth rank, last occupied in 2019, with 4,3% of the deaths attributed to this cause. HIV was a leading cause of death for adults aged 15-44 years.

Consistent with previous years, influenza and pneumonia was the only underlying cause of death common among the five broad age groups, while other forms of heart diseases were part of the ten underlying causes of death in all age groups, except for infants. Influenza and pneumonia were the leading underlying cause of death for age group 1–14 years, accounting for 6,8% deaths. Intestinal infectious diseases were among the ten leading underlying causes of death only for children, accounting for 6,6% and 5,1% of the deaths for infant and children aged 1–14 years, respectively. Diabetes mellitus was a leading cause among those aged 45–64 years, responsible for 8,1% deaths, a pattern observed in previous years. Hypertensive diseases were the leading cause of death for those aged 65 and older.

KwaZulu-Natal (15,7%) had the highest proportion of deaths due to non-natural causes followed closely by Gauteng (14,4%). Within non-natural causes, Northern Cape had the highest proportion of deaths due to assault (15,4%) and transport accidents (24,7%).