# What Romanians die of

*A canvas of a thousand dots. English edition: https://mariuscomper.uk/de-ce-mor-romanii/en/ · Română: https://mariuscomper.uk/de-ce-mor-romanii/*

Of every thousand deaths in Romania, 545 come from diseases of the heart and the blood vessels. Count the same deaths as years of life lost before 75 and 297 remain. Where the red used to be there rise the liver, the road and the first days of life.

## Two counts, the same dead

A picture of causes of death says who dies most often. It does not say how much is lost. The first count gives every person a value of one: 241,928 deaths recorded in Romania in 2023, of which 131,760 from diseases of the heart and blood vessels. The second counts the years missing up to 75, the international convention: a death at 41 is worth 34 years lost, a death at 88 is worth zero. Counted that way, the same deaths become 1,438,372 years of life lost, and 110,883 deaths carry all of them.

| Family of causes | Deaths | Per thousand | Years lost | Per thousand |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| heart and vessels | 131,760 | 545 | 427,406 | 297 |
| cancers | 46,500 | 192 | 355,505 | 247 |
| lungs | 19,686 | 81 | 137,786 | 96 |
| digestive system | 14,265 | 59 | 157,743 | 110 |
| external causes | 8,491 | 35 | 163,397 | 113 |
| infectious disease (incl. COVID-19) | 7,146 | 30 | 49,862 | 35 |
| the start of life | 658 | 3 | 47,094 | 33 |
| other illness | 11,438 | 47 | 59,856 | 41 |
| cause not stated | 1,984 | 8 | 39,724 | 28 |

The biggest jump belongs to those who have only just been born. Newborn conditions, congenital malformations and deaths linked to pregnancy came to 658 deaths, three dots out of a thousand; because each takes almost 75 years at once, in the second count they occupy 33. One such death weighs as much as twelve ordinary ones. Accidents and suicides make the same journey with larger numbers: 8,491 deaths, 163,397 years. Cirrhosis and the other chronic liver diseases, 7,850 deaths, reach 100,855 years — more than all cerebrovascular disease combined, which kills four times as many people.

## The individual causes

By number of deaths: the rest of circulatory disease 45,457, ischaemic heart disease 43,505, cerebrovascular disease 31,829, pneumonia 11,824, other heart disease 10,969, lung cancer 8,878, cirrhosis and chronic liver disease 7,850, accidents 6,351, colon and rectal cancer 6,211.

By years lost the order changes: ischaemic heart disease 171,182, accidents 116,972, the rest of circulatory disease 105,642, cirrhosis and chronic liver disease 100,855, cerebrovascular disease 91,552, pneumonia 88,538, lung cancer 70,134. Suicide, with 1,588 deaths, brings 34,750 years and enters the first thirteen.

## Where the distance from Europe sits

Measured as years lost per hundred thousand inhabitants, age-standardised, Romania loses 7,938 and the European Union 4,767. A factor of 1.67. The distance is not spread evenly: lungs 3.2 times, infectious disease 2.4 times, digestive system 2.7 times, heart 2.6 times, and cancers only 1.3 times. Cancers are the only large family where Romania sits close to Europe, and not because the treatment is good: for many cancers, people die before reaching the age at which cancers appear.

The same distance shows up in something far simpler to check: 21.5% of deaths in Romania come before 65, against 14.9% in the Union. One in five, against one in seven.

## The cause depends on the age

At 15–19, 52% of deaths come from external causes. At 20–24, half. At 45–49, heart disease reaches 28% and cancers 24%. At 70–74, the heart passes 47%. At 90–94, 81%. At 95 and over, 86%.

## Method and limits

The figures come from the Eurostat table hlth_cd_aro, deaths by cause and age for a country's residents, extracted on 7 September 2026; 2023 is the latest year published for Romania. Populations come from demo_pjan, at 1 January 2023. The recorded cause is the underlying cause of death, coded under ICD-10. Years of life lost are calculated by adding, for every death under 75, the difference between 75 and the midpoint of the age band; deaths at 75 and over count zero. The European rates are standardised on the 2013 European Standard Population over ages 0–74.

Three limits. The largest category is a remainder: "the rest of circulatory disease" gathers 45,457 deaths, more than ischaemic heart disease. Dementia does not appear at all: for 2023 Romania reported zero deaths under codes F01–F03, against 176,161 in the European Union, because here a person with dementia is recorded with the disease that actually killed them. And one year is not a history: 2023 is the first full year without the pandemic's direct effect on the total number of deaths, yet COVID-19 still appears with 1,888 deaths.

## Sources

1. Eurostat, *Causes of death — deaths by country of residence and occurrence* (hlth_cd_aro), Romania and the EU-27, 2023.
2. Eurostat, *Population on 1 January by age and sex* (demo_pjan), Romania and the EU-27, 2023.
3. Eurostat, *Causes of death (hlth_cdeath)* — metadata file, for the definition of the underlying cause.
4. Eurostat, *Revision of the European Standard Population*, 2013 edition.
5. World Health Organization, *ICD-10 Version:2019*.
6. Eurostat, *Potential years of life lost (PYLL)*, Statistics Explained.