Weekly death figures for 2023 have been updated

Updated: 20 November 2023

The first 36 weeks of 2023 saw an average of 48.4 deaths each week, compared with an average of 45.1 deaths each week in the first 36 weeks of 2017-2022. Most people died in the age group 90 years and older during the period 2017-2022. The most common age of the deceased in the first 36 weeks of 2023 was 90 years, but 87 years for the same weeks in 2017-2022.

The chart below shows a graph of weekly mortality trends in 2017-2023. To better illustrate weekly mortality trends, the graph is based on a 10-week moving average rather than showing the raw data. In this way, it is easier to compare trends between years, as weekly mortality rates are generally very low for Iceland and the numbers fluctuate considerably from one week to another.

Statistics

Deaths - Weekly Data 231120 (xlsx)

Metadata

It is worth pointing out that the number of deaths for 2023 are preliminary and likely to somewhat underestimate the true number of deaths, mainly due to late arrival of death notices. The average population of each year was used for division for the calculation of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

More metadata about statistics of deaths can be found here: Metadata about the dead