2022 Causes of Deaths in the Philippines (Preliminary as of 31 May 2023) | Philippine Statistics Authority

Release Date :

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Reference Number :

2023-293

Explanatory Note

Data on causes of death presented in this press release were obtained from the deaths registered, either timely or belatedly, at the appropriate Office of the City/Municipal Civil Registrar throughout the country and subsequently submitted for encoding to the Office of the Civil Registrar General through the Provincial Statistical Offices (PSOs) of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The information presented includes provisional deaths that occurred from January to December 2022 based on data files received and initially processed by the PSA - Civil Registration Service (CRS) from the PSOs as of 31 May 2023. Thus, the figures presented herein are still preliminary and may differ from the final count. Deaths of Filipinos abroad are not yet included in this release, but Filipinos whose usual residence is abroad and foreign nationals with deaths occurring in the country during the reference period were included in this report.

Figures in this release, specifically for deaths due to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), may differ from the one released by the Department of Health (DOH) because the figures in this release were obtained from the certificates of death particularly the descriptions written on the medical certificate portion therein as reviewed by the health officer of the local government unit concerned. On the other hand, the figures released by the DOH were obtained through a surveillance system.

Furthermore, figures in this release for deaths due to COVID-19 refer to both confirmed and probable cases as of registration. The coding of causes of death is based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems revision 10 (ICD-10). With the emergence of COVID-19, the WHO issued two new emergency codes (Code U07.1 and Code U07.2) to be used when coding causes of death for statistical purposes.

Code U07.1 or COVID-19-virus identified is used when COVID-19 is confirmed by a laboratory test. Code U07.2 or COVID-19-virus not identified is used for suspected or probable cases as well as clinically-epidemiologically diagnosed COVID-19 cases where testing was not completed or inconclusive.1 Thus, the figures in this release for deaths due to COVID-19 include both Code U07.1 and Code U07.2 while the figures released by the DOH, on the other hand, include deaths from confirmed cases only or Code U07.1.

1https://www.who.int/classifications/icd/COVID-19-coding-icd10.pdf

Ischaemic heart diseases, neoplasms, and cerebrovascular diseases lead the causes of death in the Philippines

The top three causes of death in the country from January to December of 2022 were ischaemic heart diseases, neoplasms, and cerebrovascular diseases. The leading causes of death in the same period in 2021 were ischaemic heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, and COVID-19 virus identified. From January to December of 2022, ischaemic heart diseases were the leading cause of death with 123,067 cases or 18.3 percent of the total deaths in the country. On the other hand, neoplasms, came in second with 68,577 deaths (10.2% share). Cerebrovascular diseases were the third leading cause which accounted for 68,284 recorded cases (10.2% share) from January to December 2022. Deaths due to diabetes mellitus recorded 42,314 cases or 6.3 percent share, making it the fourth leading cause of death, while deaths due to hypertensive diseases, which ranked fifth, recorded 38,508 cases or 5.7 percent share. (Figure 1 and Table 1)

Deaths due to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) decreased substantially in 2022

Registered deaths due to COVID-19 accounted for a total of 17,860 deaths or 2.7 percent of the total registered deaths from January to December 2022. This shows a decline of -84.2 percent from the 112,772 deaths due to COVID-19 that were registered in the same period in 2021. By classification, COVID-19 with virus identified was the 11th leading cause of death in the country with 12,767 cases or 1.9 percent of the total deaths. It was ranked 3rd in the same period in 2021 with 79,423 deaths or 9.0 percent of the total deaths. Meanwhile, registered deaths due to COVID-19 with virus not identified accounted for 5,093 or 0.8 percent of the total deaths, down from 8th in 2021 to 24th as the leading cause of death in the country in 2022. (Figure 1 and Table 1)

Four regions report more than a thousand COVID-19 deaths

Among the 17 regions, National Capital Region (NCR) registered the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19 with 4,472 or 25.0 percent of the total COVID-19 deaths from January to December 2022. Region IV-A (CALABARZON) ranked second with 2,890 deaths (16.2% share), Central Luzon came in third with 2,365 deaths (13.2% share), while Western Visayas was fourth with 1,264 deaths (7.1% share). On the other hand, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) reported the least number of registered COVID-19 deaths with only 69 cases (0.4% share). (Figure 2 and Table 2)

Quezon City registers most COVID-19 deaths in NCR

In NCR, Quezon City reported the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19, with 932 deaths or 20.8 percent of the total COVID-19 deaths in the region from January to December 2022. This was followed by the City of Manila and City of Pasig with 682 (15.3% share) and 456 (10.2% share) COVID-19 deaths, respectively. (Figure 3 and Table 3)