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The death statistics include the deaths occurring in Spain each year. Death is considered the death of any person who dies regardless of the number of hours lived.
The data are collected in a document called a medical death certificate/statistical death bulletin. This document is completed by the doctor who certifies the death, in the section relating to personal data and causes of death. The civil registry in which the death is registered completes the data relating to the registration and the declarant or relatives the data relating to the residence or nationality of the deceased. In the case of deaths that occur in special circumstances and in which a court intervenes.
The death statistics provide information broken down at the national level as well as at the level of Autonomous Community, provinces, capitals and municipalities. It includes information on the deceased with less than twenty-four hours of life.
It collects all deaths occurring in Spain, regardless of whether they are of resident or non-resident population
The basic unit of the statistics is the deceased person
The target population of the statistics is all the people who die in Spain
The statistics cover the entire national territory, with data broken down by Autonomous Community, provinces, capitals and municipalities.
The statistics are carried out on an annual basis. Results are available from 1900 to 2022.
Year 1975
The unit of measurement is the number of persons who die in the reference period
The data refer to the calendar year covered by the statistics, regardless of whether the data are published by month of occurrence of the deaths
Data referred to the period: Anual A: 2023
The compilation and dissemination of the data are governed by the Statistical Law No. 12/1989 "Public Statistical Function" of May 9, 1989, and Law No. 4/1990 of June 29 on “National Budget of State for the year 1990" amended by Law No. 13/1996 "Fiscal, administrative and social measures" of December 30, 1996, makes compulsory all statistics included in the National Statistics Plan. The National Statistical Plan 2009-2012 was approved by the Royal Decree 1663/2008. It contains the statistics that must be developed in the four year period by the State General Administration's services or any other entity dependent on it. All statistics included in the National Statistics Plan are statistics for state purposes and are obligatory. The National Statistics Plan 2021-2024, approved by Royal Decree 1110/2020, of 15 December, is the Plan currently implemented. This statistical operation has governmental purposes, and it is included in the National Statistics Plan 2021-2024. (Statistics of the State Administration).
There are collaboration agreements with the Autonomous Communities for the preparation of the Vital Statistics
It is carried out in collaboration with the Autonomous Communities
The Statistical Law No. 12/1989 specifies that the INE cannot publish, or make otherwise available, individual data or statistics that would enable the identification of data for any individual person or entity. Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society
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The advance release calendar that shows the precise release dates for the coming year is disseminated in the last quarter of each year.
The calendar is disseminated on the INEs Internet website (Publications Calendar)
The data are released simultaneously according to the advance release calendar to all interested parties by issuing the press release. At the same time, the data are posted on the INE's Internet website (www.ine.es/en) almost immediately after the press release is issued. Also some predefined tailor-made requests are sent to registered users. Some users could receive partial information under embargo as it is publicly described in the European Statistics Code of Practice
The definitive results corresponding to year t are published during the last quarter of year t+1, along with the micro-data files from which they are obtained.
The advanced results are disseminated on a monthly basis by means of the following statistical operation:
• Estimated number of weekly deaths
The results of the statistical operations are normally disseminated by using press releases that can be accessed via both the corresponding menu and the Press Releases Section in the web
The results of this statistic are disseminated through the INE website and some results are included in publications such as the Statistical Yearbook, INE Figures, Spain in Figures, etc.
INEbase is the system the INE uses to store statistical information on the Internet. It contains all the information the INE produces in electronic formats. The primary organisation of the information follows the theme-based classification of the Inventory of Statistical Operations of the State General Administration . The basic unit of INEbase is the statistical operation, defined as the set of activities that lead to obtaining statistical results on a determined sector or subject based on the individually collected data. Also included in the scope of this definition are synthesis preparation.
All the information related to this statistic (results, methodology, questionnaires, etc.) can be consulted at
Informgation related to Weekly death estimates can be found at:
Final data contain detailed tables for the different variables included in the Medical Death Certificate-Statistical Death Bulletin.
All the information regarding the Basic Demographic Indicators in general can be consulted at:
Final data on mortality indicators provide information at the national, Autonomous Community and province levels with greater disaggregation of variables.
The microdata files of this statistic can be accessed and downloaded. These files are made anonymous to preserve statistical secrecy.
No information is provided for the following variables:
- Name, surname, identification document, address of the deceased person
- Registration data of the death in the civil registry
- Variable day on all dates
- Codes of municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants. The size of the municipalities is provided
- Codes of countries with a lower frequency than that established
- Causes of death
The information can be consulted at:
Interested users can request, through the INE User Service Area, specific operations of information that are carried out preserving the confidentiality of the data and signing the corresponding agreement or document.
See:
A detailed description is available at:
https://www.ine.es/en/metodologia/t20/t2030301_en.pdf
https://www.ine.es/en/metodologia/t20/metodologia_idb_en.pdf
Fields 10.6 to 17 of this document are considered the user-oriented quality report for this operation
Quality assurance framework for the INE statistics is based on the ESSCoP, the European Statistics Code of Practice made by EUROSTAT. The ESSCoP is made up of 16 principles, gathered in three areas: Institutional Environment, Processes and Products. Each principle is associated with some indicators which make possible to measure it. In order to evaluate quality, EUROSTAT provides different tools: the indicators mentioned above, Self-assessment based on the DESAP model, peer review, user satisfaction surveys and other proceedings for evaluation.
On 1 January 2009 a series of reforms came into force in the collection of information on death statistics as well as death statistics according to cause of death. Several changes have been made, both in the forms and in the information circuit.
The objectives have been the following:
1.- To improve the quality of information in general and in particular of the causes of death, adapting the method of collecting these variables to the recommendations of the WHO and Eurostat. To this end, two documents have been unified in which the information was collected: the medical death certificate (MDC) and the statistical death bulletin (SDB). Both requested duplicate identification information and, in addition, the doctor had to fill in the causes of death in both of them. This double effort was not always carried out by the certifying doctor, and the SDB was completed by another person from the MDC information, with the consequent loss of quality of the information.
2.- The coverage control is carried out in the Provincial Delegations of the INE from cross-checking the correlative registration volume and page. It is also compared with the computerised part of the Civil Registry.
3.- To adapt the collection of information to the new technologies of Information and Communication. To this end, it has been implemented optical character recognition (OCR) to perform the recording of information and the new MDC/SDB has been designed for the same purpose.
In order to evaluate the quality of the information contained in the medical death certificate/statistical death bulletin as well as in the judicial death statistical bulletin, exhaustive controls are carried out in all phases of the statistics process from the recording of the information to its publication.
Particular emphasis is placed on checking that the values of the variables are valid, that there are no inconsistencies between the information we receive in a single death and that we receive all deaths occurred in Spain in the reference period of the data
Likewise, the INE information is compared with that provided by the Ministry of Justice for registrations made in computerised civil registers. This comparison allows us to correct the errors detected.
The errors and non-response detected in the variables included in the medical death certificate/statistical death bulletin are cleaned with the information provided by the Ministry of Justice corresponding to death registrations made in computerised civil registers. This information is accessible in all INE provincial delegations at the time of recording the information in the statistical bulletins. This allows for cleaning and detecting possible lack of coverage with considerable time savings, while minimizing non-response.
Information on deaths is used by other INE units, such as:
Electoral Census, to deregister the deceased persons
Municipal Register. The death files serve as a basis for the City Councils to update their Municipal Register of Inhabitants by removing the deceased persons
Health Statistics, for the preparation of the Death Statistics according to cause of death
Demographic Indicators, for the preparation of the mortality and life expectancy tables
Demographic projections, for the calculation of the figures of the future population
National bodies
Based on the RESOLUTION of 7 February 2005, of the Under-Secretary, which provides for the publication of the management delegation of the Secretary of State for Justice to the National Statistics Institute in matters of transmission of computerised data relating to the registration of births, marriages and deaths carried out in the Civil Registries, the Secretary of State for Justice and the National Statistics Institute have signed, on 13 October 2004, an Agreement entrusting the latter, on a transitory basis, until the
conclusion of the computerisation process of all the Civil Registers, the transmission of computerised data relating to the registration of births, marriages and deaths carried out in the Civil Registries. The National Statistics Institute, at the request of the Directorate General of Registries and Notaries, may facilitate
massive transmission of public interest data to public bodies interested in them.
International Organisations
EUROSTAT and the United Nations. The information agreed in the meetings of the working groups on demographic statistics is submitted
Requests from universities, hospital research groups, companies and individuals
Universities and researchers request death information for disease studies
Insurance companies use death information as the basis for calculating the policy quote period
The INE has carried out general user satisfaction surveys in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019 and it plans to continue doing so every three years. The purpose of these surveys is to find out what users think about the quality of the information of the INE statistics and the extent to which their needs of information are covered. In addition, additional surveys are carried out in order to acknowledge better other fields such as dissemination of the information, quality of some publications...
On the INE website, in its section Methods and Projects / Quality and Code of Practice / INE quality management / User surveys are available surveys conducted to date.(Click next link)
The information required is made available to users, respecting the confidentiality of the information. The modification of the content of the questionnaire carried out in 2009 took into account the needs for additional information required by other bodies and institutions.
The information collected allows us to deal with all the requests received.
100% of the results requested by the National Statistical Plan are provided
Data completeness rate is 100%
The collection procedure, coverage control, cleaning of errors and imputation of non-response, allows to obtain a high degree of reliability of the statistics.
It is not applicable because the data are obtained comprehensively from an administrative source (entries in the civil register)
Delays in the submission of information by some civil registries and lack of information in some variables of the bulletin. This results in a non-response rate of approximately 0.1 percent
An attempt is made to reduce the non-response rate by obtaining information from the Ministry of Justice file
The final statistics data are published at the end of the year following the reference year of the information, that is, within 12 months.
Data dissemination is carried out in accordance with the structural statistics availability calendar that the INE prepares and publishes for each year.
The processing of this statistic in all its phases is the same for the entire territory. In this way, the results are perfectly comparable for any geographical disaggregation. Likewise, they are comparable with the rest of the European Union countries as they follow the Eurostat recommendations established for all countries and agreed in the meetings of the Demographic Statistics working group
The statistical concept of death used traditionally in Spain included all those who died with more than 24 hours of life. As of 1975, this concept has been expanded with the incorporation of those born alive and deceased during the first 24 hours of life. This change implies the adaptation of the death criterion recommended by international organisations.
This change led to a break in the series of deaths from 1975 onwards, since before 1975 the death figures do not include those born alive who died before the first 24 hours of life, and from 1975 onwards it does
The length of the comparable data series is 48 years
CC2=48 años
The death figures are consistent with both the census figures and with future population projections
The consistency between variables is contrasted in all phases of the statistical process.
In order for doctors who certify a death not to have to complete the medical death certificate and, in addition, the death statistics bulletin, in 2009 the questionnaire was modified to collect information from this statistic by designing a unique model called the medical death certificate/statistical death bulletin in which all the information required in both documents is collected.
As it is a statistic based on an administrative register, it does not involve a burden for the respondents
The estimated budget appropriation necessary to finance the Vital Statistics (made up of the Death Statistics, the Birth Statistics, the Marriage Statistics) foreseen in the 2023 Annual Programme is 4,190.95 thousand euros
The INE of Spain has a policy which regulates the basic aspects of statistical data revision, seeking to ensure process transparency and product quality. This policy is laid out in the document approved by the INE board of directors on 13 March of 2015, which is available on the INE website, in the section "Methods and projects/Quality and Code of Practice/INE’s Quality management/INE’s Revision policy" (link).
This general policy sets the criteria that the different type of revisions should follow: routine revision- it is the case of statistics whose production process includes regular revisions-; more extensive revision- when methodological or basic reference source changes take place-; and exceptional revision- for instance, when an error appears in a published statistic-.
Final data are not reviewed. They are only reviewed if there is an error in the publication
The statistics data are obtained from the information filled in by doctors, courts, family members and the Civil Registry at the time of a death. Two models of questionnaires have been designed
1.-Medical Death Certificate/Statistical Death Bulletin for deaths in which there are no special circumstances
2.- In the case of deaths in which, due to their circumstances, a court must intervene, the information is collected in a in a web application.
The information contained in both documents is practically the same. Information is obtained from the personal data of the deceased person, the place of death, the causes of death, the circumstances of the death in the case of deaths with judicial intervention, the registration in the Civil Registry
Data collection is carried out monthly.
Information is obtained through the following data collection tools:
– In the case of death by natural causes, the collection tool is:
The Medical Certificate of Death/Statistical Death Bulletin (CMD/BED, per its Spanish initials): there are versions in Spanish and in the co-official languages as
well. The first sheet corresponds to the medical death certificate and must always be completed by the doctor certifying the death, while the Statistical Deaths
Bulletin can be completed by the reporting party or, failing that, by the Civil Register.
This paper document is delivered to the Civil Registry of the municipality where the death took place. On a monthly basis, the CMD/BEDs are sent from the civil
registries to the corresponding INE provincial office. At said office, it is scanned and processed.
As a consequence of the Vital Statistics modernisation process, from 2009 onwards, recording techniques using optical character recognition were
incorporated into the CMD/BED.
– In the case of violent deaths, or suspected criminal deaths, the collection tools used are:
The Statistical Deaths Bulletin with Judicial Intervention is filled out in a web application designed by the INE, which the courts can access through the Punto
Neutro Judicial (inter-agency communication network). From 2020 onwards, deaths involving judicial investigation are mainly recorded by the Institutes of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Sciences through an application designed by the INE.
In the initial phase of the statistics, its recording by means of optical character recognition, the application includes the detection of certain errors in the MDC/SDB information as well as the control of coverage and the detection of duplicated information. These errors have to be corrected in this first phase in order to include their information in the death database. The objective is to obtain levels of quality that make the process of cleaning and imputation of the subsequent processing phases faster and less costly.
A cleaning of the recorded data at national level is carried out in order to detect inconsistencies, duplicates, lack of information, etc. The result of this process is subjected to an automatic imputation phase for variables with missing or inconsistent information. Once this phase has been completed, the microdata files of the statistics are obtained from which we obtain the tables of the publication of both deaths and the corresponding mortality indicators. Likewise, the anonymised microdata files are obtained and made available to users on the web
No adjustments are made, as the data from this statistic is derived from an administrative record