Causes of death, national time series classification 2021

The classification was made to describe the development of causes of death in Finland as a comparable time series. The classification is available starting from the data for 1969.

The classification has been formed on the basis of the most detailed codes of the classification of disease in use in the statistics on causes of deaths in various years and does not comply with the main group levels of the classifications of diseases. Codes according to the international ICD-10 classification belonging to one individual category are listed in brackets after each category.

The key between the classification and the ICD classifications (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problem) used in the statistics on causes of death can be found under Additional materials.

A change in the World Health Organization WHO’s coding rules has reduced pneumonia as an underlying cause since 2005. Chronic disease mentioned in the death certificate is recorded as the person's underlying cause of death instead of pneumonia.

In 1998, a new category 54 ‘No death certificate’ was added to the classification. Between 1969 and 1997, the cases in this category are included in category 40 ‘Ill-defined and unknown causes of mortality’.

In 2020, a new category 00 ‘Covid-19 virus infection (U071, U072)’ was added to the classification.

In 2021, new codes U109 were added to class 00 and U129 to class 53.