Heart disease, stroke and cancer are Cayman’s biggest killers

Cardiovascular disease was the number one cause of death in the Cayman Islands last year, according to the latest statistics from the Economics and Statistics Office.

It was closely followed by malignant neoplasms – commonly called cancerous tumours.

The recently published Cayman Islands Compendium of Statistics 2022 gave a breakdown of the deaths last year.

A chart detailing the leading cause of death among residents by rank and sex, showed there were 278 deaths across the islands – 149 males and 129 females.

Seventy-five people died from cardiovascular disease – including heart disease and stroke, 69 from cancer and 27 from the third biggest killer, unintentional injuries.

The fourth leading cause of death was diabetes, killing 23 people, and the fifth was neuropsychiatric conditions which took the lives of 22 people.

The sixth to the 10th biggest killers in Cayman in 2022 were digestive diseases, infectious or parasitic diseases, respiratory diseases, endocrine disorders, and diseases of the urinary or genital organs.

Despite cardiovascular disease being the biggest killer overall, more men died of cancer than heart disease in 2022, according to the statistics.

Meanwhile, women were less likely to succumb to unintentional injuries or neuropsychiatric conditions than men.

The Cayman Islands Compendium of Statistics 2021, showed that the leading cause of death was largely unchanged from year to year.

However, in 2021 diabetes was listed as the third biggest killer with unintentional injuries in fourth place.

In 2020, the World Health Organization published the 10 leading causes of death globally. Heart disease and stroke were also at the top of the list as biggest killers.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – which includes bronchitis and emphysema – was listed as number three – ranked much higher than respiratory diseases in Cayman.

Other causes of death not included in Cayman’s list were neonatal conditions at number five, dementia at number seven, diarrhoeal diseases at number eight and kidney diseases at number 10.