European General Practice Research Network, Riga-Latvia, 11th-14th May, 2017

The main cause of death in Latvia just like a whole Europe are chronic diseases. In Latvia cardiovascular diseases and diabetes alongside with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cancer are among the four main chronic diseases (NCD) altogether responsible for 82% of NCD deaths. CVD and diabetes are responsible for 50.2% of NCDs deaths. Premature death is a major consideration when evaluating the impact of NCDs on a given population and is used as an indicator in the global monitoring framework. Approximately 42% of all NCD deaths occurred before the age of 70 years in 2012. Cardiovascular diseases (37%) and diabetes (4%) were responsible for 41% of NCD deaths under the age of 70 years followed by cancers (27%), other causes (23%) and chronic respiratory diseases (8%). Probability of dying from the four main NCDs between the ages of 30 and 70 years in Latvia in 2000 and 2012 (25,3% and 24.1%) still exceeds the global average (23% and 19%) being the highest rate among European Union countries and the third highest rate among high-income countries after Trinidad and Tobago and Russian Federation. According to WHO data (2012) age-standardized mortality rate (per 100 000 population) from cardiovascular diseases is still the highest in Latvia (males – 512.4; females – 266.5; both sexes – 361.1) compared with, for example, Estonia (387.4; 199.5; 272.1), Lithuania (448.2; 241.6; 322.5), Sweden (162.8; 105.7; 132.0), Finland (197.3; 104.1; 145.9), despite the slight decrease since 2000.