FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4294
You asked
Please supply the number of fatalities resulting in sudden adult death syndrome (sudden arrhythmic death syndrome) during the past five years to date, including any data you have for 2022 (I acknowledge that the data will be incomplete for this year). I would also like to request that the covid vaccination status relating to each recorded death be provided?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry
The conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) . From all of these causes an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules. The underlying cause of death is defined by World Health Organisation (WHO) as:
a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury
In England and Wales, deaths where "Sudden Adult Death Syndrome" or "Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome" are mentioned on the death certificate are recorded with an ICD-10 code of R96 or I49.9 respectively.
The information you have requested part of our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice
- Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).
- Select Age - All ages or 5-year age bands.
- Select Gender - Total or Male/Female
- Select rates - All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example.
- Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available).
- Select format (Excel or CSV for example)
| Date | A00-R99,U00-Y89 All causes, all ages | I49.9 Cardiac arrhythmia, unspecified | R96 Other sudden death, cause unknown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 533,253 | 244 | 34 |
| 2018 | 541,589 | 250 | 39 |
| 2019 | 530,841 | 223 | 64 |
| 2020 | 607,922 | 197 | 95 |
| 2021 | 586,334 | 176 | 100 |
Download this table
.xls .csvAs per the previously published FOI, we have not yet conducted analysis of 2022 data for this specific cause of death. This is to allow the inclusion of late registrations which are deaths which have been referred to Coroner for investigation.
We have not conducted analysis of deaths by specific ICD-10 codes except for COVID-19 by vaccination status. Analysis of COVID-19 deaths and all cause deaths can be found in Deaths by vaccination status, England - Office for National Statistics.
If you would like to request a special extract of mortality data, such as deaths by specific cause and vaccination status or request provisional data for 2022 this can be ordered through the HALE Customer Services Team. Special extract and tabulations of mortality data are subject to disclosure control, legal frameworks, resources and agreement to costs under the ONS Charging policy. Please note that we can provide you with deaths by Vaccination status for England by specific cause of death (subject to disclosure controls) however we cannot provide this for Wales as we do not have the Public Health Data Asset for Wales. Therefore, Mortality statistics broken down vaccination status for Wales is not held.
We can also provide a special extract of SADS deaths for both England and Wales for 2022 using provisional data however this will not include Vaccination status for Wales.
If you would like to discuss the bespoke services available to you or would like to receive a quote for this work, please contact the Customer Services team on Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.