Knowledge & Resources:
Non-communicable diseases

The policy brief reports key findings of a study that analysed official mortality data on premature deaths under 70 years of age in the North of Europe. The majority of premature deaths are avoidable by effective health promotion, disease prevention, and evidence based medical treatment.

To implement health promotion and disease prevention, reliable and timely information on population’s health, its determinants and their distribution are needed. The manuscript on the Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) published in the European Journal of Public Health presents the trends in preventable premature loss of life, its causes and developments between 2003-2013 in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea Region. The manuscript is based on research carried out by the Expert Group on Non-Communicable Diseases.