Deaths resulting from asbestos in the past 10 years

Release date:
20 November 2020

You asked

Please could you provide data on the following:-

  1. Annual deaths recorded as a direct result of Asbestosis for the last 10 years
  2. Ages of those affected at time of death
  3. Nationality of those affected

We said

Thank you for your query.

We are responsible for producing mortality statistics for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration.

Unfortunately, we would not know of the nationality of the individual as this is not collected on the death certificate.

All of the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) the coded mortality data available up to end of December 2019 is coded to version 2014 of the ICD10 framework. From all of these causes an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules. The underlying cause of death is defined by WHO as:

a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury

Pneumoconiosis, due to asbestos and other mineral fibres, is coded under the ICD10 code J61.

We have annual mortality data available by cause for the years 2013 to 2019. This is available as part of our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice.

  • Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).
  • Select Age – All ages or 5-year age bands.
  • Select Gender – Total or Male/Female
  • Select rates – All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example.
  • Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available). J61
  • Select format (Excel or CSV for example)

Additionally, these figures from 2001 to 2019 are published in our 21st century mortality dataset: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/the21stcenturymortalityfilesdeathsdataset

You can filter J61 on the 'ICD-10' column for each year and it will leave you with the data for asbestosis.

If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.

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