Death Statistics

A lot of people die every day, your turn will come too. But did you know how many people die and at what age? In 2019, 527,234 people died in the UK, that’s an average of 1,444 every day. Deaths in the UK are forecast to rise to over 600,000 annually by 2040.

Another fact is that out of all these deaths around 75% are not sudden, that is the person is aware that they will die in the near future. That means a whopping 25% of people die suddenly from such things as heart attacks and strokes – that’s around 130,000 in 2019.

Also a large number of people die ‘young’ or well before their due date. The average age of death for men is 79.3 and women 82.9 (Office of National Statistics 2016-2018). However in 2019 over 80,000 of people died under the age of 65, that’s a lot.

I’ve had three close friends who died suddenly in their mid fifties. We all know people who have died before their time.

Another very interesting statistic – a study showed that 77% of us think about death weekly. So we think about death, we know we will die and we all know people who have died, but we still tend to block the thought out and don’t believe it will happen to us. Maybe not a bad thing, after all life is for living, but a little planning and thought will go a long way.

I had an insightful conversation with my family last night. We got onto the subject of burial wishes and was very surprised that my 21 year old daughter had a clear plan, she wanted to buried in a biodegradable pod that turns your body into a tree . My wife wanted her ashes scattered at the top of a mountain in the Pyrenees. We know what we want but we just don’t talk about it, document it or share our wishes with anyone. We hope Aura will improve that situation.