The nation’s average life expectancy would rise by 3.32 years from 79.84 if cancer were excluded, demonstrating how the disease affects the expected lifespan in Taiwan by a significant margin, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday.
The ministry cited Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics on the top 10 causes of death last year as the basis for its calculation.
The interior ministry said that it compared the average lifespan of those with specific causes of death against the average lifespan of people with normal health — the greater the difference, the more severe the effect of the disease has on life expectancy.
Photo: CNA
Malignant tumors have led the top 10 causes of death for more than 41 years, with the average mortality rate of those with malignant tumors at 51,927, or 24.9 percent of the total national mortality rate, it said.
If malignant tumors could be removed, life expectancy could increase to 83.16 years, it said.
The discrepancy in lifespan for those with malignant tumors and those with average health dropped from 4.08 years in 2012 to 3.32 years last year, it added.
Heart disease ranked second in the top 10 causes of death last year, with life expectancy rising by 1.37 years if it were eradicated, the interior ministry said.
The COVID-19 pandemic ranked third and if the disease could be removed entirely, life expectancy could rise to 80.64 years, or an increase of 0.8 years.
Men are more prone to die from malignant tumors, heart disease, COVID-19, pneumonia, cerebrovascular diseases, accidents and chronic lower respiratory diseases, data showed.
Conversely, women are more likely to die from diabetes, hypertension and nephrotic syndromes, such as nephritis or nephrosis, the data showed.
In related news, Legislative Yuan Foundation of Health and Welfare director Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) said that the group had raised funds for 165 automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and donated them to cities and counties nationwide in response to the Ministry of Health and Welfare changing the regulations in May.
Heart disease was the second-most common cause of death last year, foundation secretary-general Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) said, adding that knowing how to operate an AED or conduct CPR would allow individuals to save people or stabilize their condition until paramedics arrive.
Su said she was glad that the health ministry’s amended regulations include junior-high schools and police stations as locations that must have an AED.
All junior-high schools have at least one AED, but there are 614 police stations nationwide lacking such devices, Wu said.
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