Overview
- The new European Journal of Population study from BiB and the Universities of Groningen and Oldenburg defines avoidable deaths as those before age 75 that timely care, screening, prevention or safety measures could prevent.
- The analysis covers 581 regions across ten countries from 2002 to 2019 and leaves out 2020 because COVID‑19 distorted death patterns.
- Germany cut avoidable mortality over decades yet still ranks as a Western European hotspot, and the gap to low‑rate Switzerland has widened.
- Hotspots cluster in the northeast, including Nordthüringen, Ostniedersachsen and large parts of Sachsen‑Anhalt, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern, while coldspots appear in Switzerland and much of Italy, France and Spain.
- Men die far more often from avoidable causes than women in 2017–2019 (62 vs 24 per 100,000 each year), and researchers link regional gaps to screening and treatment capacity, lifestyle risks like smoking and alcohol, and local income and education, urging region‑targeted prevention.