Births, deaths & other vital events, 2017 Q2

Provisional figures for vital events registered in Scotland during the second quarter of 2017 were published today by National Records of Scotland.

The statistics show 12,964 births, 13,788 deaths and 8,017 marriages were registered between April and June.

At 12,964, the number of births registered was 966 (6.9%) fewer than in the same period of 2016 and the lowest quarter two total since 2003.

At 13,788, the number of deaths registered was 322 (2.4%) more than in the same period of 2016.

Compared with the second quarter of 2016, the number of deaths from coronary heart disease fell by 5.3% to 1,590 and deaths from cerebrovascular disease fell by 4.8% to 916. There were 3,831 deaths from cancer (a decrease of 0.8%). Deaths from respiratory system diseases rose by 2.8% to 1,642 compared with quarter two of 2016. There was an increase of 33.4% in the number of deaths from Alzheimer’s Disease (570) and the number of deaths from dementia rose by 16.9 per cent to 936 (although part of this increase will be due to the change in cause of death coding software – refer to note 2 below for more details.

Over the longer term, deaths from coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease have decreased considerably whilst the number of deaths from cancer and respiratory disease has risen slightly. There has been a relatively large increase in the number of deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease with such deaths now accounting for around 10% of all deaths compared to 5% a decade ago.

Full publication, Births, deaths and other vital events - quarterly figures, including figures for NHS Boards and local authority areas.