Death refers to the permanent disappearance of all evidence of life at any time after birth has taken place. It is a postnatal cessation of vital functions without capability of resuscitation, thus, fetal death is not included. Place of occurrence refers to the place where the vital event took place while usual residence refers to the place where the deceased had habitually or permanently resided when still alive.

Number of deaths in the country up by 5.4 percent

A total of 366,931 deaths were reported in 2000. This was 5.4 percent higher than the 1999 count of 347,989. Daily death occurrences were two deaths every three minutes.

Of the number of deaths, 217,404 or 59.2 percent were males and 149,527 or 40.8 percent were females, resulting to a death sex ratio of 145.

Five per 1,000 population died in 2000

The crude death rate (CDR) was estimated at 4.8 which is approximately five deaths per thousand population. Males had a higher CDR (5.6) than females (3.9).

Seven regions reflected CDR higher than the national level of 4.8 (see Figure 1). These were the National Capital Region or NCR (5.7), Ilocos (6.4), Central Luzon (5.2), Southern Tagalog (5.0), Bicol (5.4) Western Visayas (5.7), and Central Visayas (5.1).

Considered to be large regions in terms of population size, Southern Tagalog and NCR had the largest proportion of deaths in the country with 59,125 (or 16.1 percent) and 56,791 (or 15.5 percent), respectively.

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), meanwhile, reported the smallest proportion of registered deaths with only 1,740 or 0.5 percent of the total.

More males died earlier than females

Except in age group 80 and over, the proportion of male deaths was higher than female deaths in all ages groups (Figure 2). Disparity between sexes was prominent from infancy until after retirement ages.

The mortality at age group 80 and over showed a very high proportion with 62,680 or 17.1 percent of the total. The sex ratio at death in this age group was 76.

Infant deaths

The number of infant deaths reported in 2000 was 27,714. The infant death sex ratio was 142.5, which indicates higher risk of dying among male infants than female infants.

The daily average was 76 and the months with higher occurrences were August (2,552) and October (2,502) with daily averages of 82 and 81, respectively.

Maternal deaths

The number of pregnancy-related deaths or maternal deaths was 1,698, up by 24.9 percent from the previous year's 1,359 and by 29.9 percent from the 1,307 in 1990.

Most maternal deaths were reported in Southern Tagalog (272 or 16.0 percent), Bicol (192 or 11.3 percent), and Central Visayas (186 or 11.0 percent).

Maternal deaths attended to by physicians, public health officers, and hospital authorities were 1,052 or 62.0 percent of the total. Meanwhile, 646 cases or 38.0 percent received no medical attendance.

Bicol (99 or 51.6 percent), Central Mindanao (21 or 50.0 percent) and ARMM (7 or 58.3 percent) were the regions where 50 percent or more of all cases of maternal deaths received no medical attention.