These tables contain information on the underlying causes of all deaths registered in New Zealand in 2016. A ‘Quick facts’ section also includes information on rates of death by ethnicity and selected causes of mortality.
Most information is broken down by age, sex, ethnicity, district health board and statistical classification chapters, subgroups and three character codes.
These tables form part of the Mortality and Demographic Data annual series.
This data is sourced from the Mortality Collection.
This data was extracted on 25 February 2020.
At the time this mortality data was extracted, there were 92 deaths awaiting final coroners’ findings. Of these, 10 deaths had no known cause and 82 deaths had a provisional cause (ie, not yet confirmed).
We have quality checked the collection, extraction, and reporting of the data presented here. However errors can occur. Contact the Ministry of Health if you have any concerns regarding any of the data or analyses presented here, at [email protected].
Quick facts
- There were 31,398 deaths registered in 2016, equating to an age-standardised rate of 364.6 deaths per 100,000 population.
- Males accounted for 15,898 deaths in 2016, slightly higher than for females (15,500).
- Māori accounted for 3,471 deaths in 2016, 11.1% of all deaths registered.
- The leading causes of death were cancer, ischaemic heart diseases and cerebrovascular diseases. Cancer deaths made up 30.3% of all deaths, ischaemic heart diseases 14.9% and cerebrovascular diseases 7.4%.
- For Māori, the leading causes of death in 2016 were cancer, ischaemic heart diseases and chronic lower respiratory diseases.
- Similar to previous years, mortality rates were generally higher for males than for females. For example, males had higher mortality rates for intentional self-harm, motor vehicle accidents, melanoma and ischaemic heart diseases compared with females in 2016.
- As seen in previous years, mortality rates for Māori were generally higher than for non-Māori. For example, Māori had higher mortality rates for ischaemic heart diseases, diabetes mellitus and lung cancer compared with non-Māori in 2016.
| Number of deaths | Percentage of deaths by sex | Mortality rate | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | Male | Female | Male | Female | Total | Male | Female | |
| Māori | 3,471 | 1,873 | 1,598 | 54.0 | 46.0 | 621.8 | 737.6 | 528.5 |
| Non-Māori | 27,927 | 14,025 | 13,902 | 50.2 | 49.8 | 337.4 | 393.8 | 286.6 |
| Total | 31,398 | 15,898 | 15,500 | 50.6 | 49.4 | 364.6 | 425.5 | 310.1 |
Note: rates per 100,000 population, age standardised to WHO World Standard Population.