So are the Canaries healthy or not?

Measured by the mortality of their age groups they are above the Spanish average: 823.2 against 769.2 per 100,000. That fewer people die in total than elsewhere is down to the younger age structure.

Why does the standardised rate not come from the INE?

The INE publishes deaths by cause, age and region and the population by age, but no standardised rate per region. We combined the two tables ourselves.

Why 17 territories in one place and 19 in another?

Spain has 17 autonomous communities plus the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. We state the basis with every ranking.

How reliable is the figure for Ceuta?

Not very. Behind the 909.9 per 100,000 lie only 522 deaths, so a handful of cases moves the value a long way.

Are there figures for 2025 yet?

For 2025 the INE has so far published only provisional figures, 441,270 nationally. The most recent definitive year is 2024.

CANARY ISLANDS · HEALTH

823 per 100,000: why the Canaries are less healthy than the death figures suggest

The raw death figures make the Canary Islands look like one of Spain's healthiest regions: 780.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024, about 13 per cent below the national rate. Take out the fact that comparatively few old people live on the islands and the picture reverses: the figure becomes 823.2 per 100,000, above the Spanish average. Both numbers come from the same data published by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística. The difference lies in how you read them.

18 September 2026 · By Lucía Medina Reyes · 6 min · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief

The Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Tenerife (illustrative)

Photo: Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)., CC BY-SA 4.0 (illustrative image).

The figures at a glance

INE, deaths by cause of death, table 73036, year 2024 (definitive): 17,545 deaths in the Canaries, 436,118 in Spain.
Crude rate: Canaries 780.8, Spain 893.3 per 100,000 — 12.6 per cent lower, the fourth lowest of the 17 autonomous communities.
Age-standardised, our own calculation: Canaries 823.2, Spain 769.2 — 7.0 per cent higher, the fourth highest of 19 territories.
Age structure: 18.00 per cent of Canary residents were 65 or over on 1 July 2024, against 20.59 nationally (INE, table 56943, definitive).
Largest single part of the excess: respiratory disease, standardised 118.3 against 86.3 per 100,000 (our calculation).

Two numbers, two league tables

The crude rate simply divides all the deaths in a year by the number of inhabitants. On that measure the Canaries, at 780.8, hold the fourth lowest place among the 17 autonomous communities; only Madrid at 701.0, the Balearics at 725.0 and Murcia at 742.5 are lower. Count Ceuta and Melilla as well and there are 19 territories, and the islands slip to sixth from the bottom. Age-standardisation turns the order around: at 823.2 the Canaries rank fourth from the top among those same 19 territories, behind only Ceuta at 909.9, Andalusia at 840.8 and Extremadura at 825.3. The Balearics, which look similarly good on the crude measure, sit below the Canaries once standardised, at 805.3; Madrid is lowest at 647.5.

What age standardisation means

Dying is above all a matter of age: a region with many eighty-year-olds has more deaths per inhabitant than one with many thirty-year-olds, however healthy both may be. Standardisation removes that effect. You take the death rate actually measured in each single age group and work out how many people would die if every region compared had exactly the same age structure. It is the difference between how much petrol is in the tank and how much a car uses per hundred kilometres — only the second compares cars.

This rate is our own calculation; the INE publishes neither it nor this ranking. We standardised directly to the 2013 European Standard Population, using 13 common age bands, because the two tables use different age groupings; the denominator is the population per band on 1 July 2024. The absolute level of such a rate depends on the standard population and the banding chosen — the level is our figure, while the ranking is robust.

Where the excess comes from

Fifty-four points per 100,000 separate the Canary rate from the Spanish one, and by chapter of the international classification of diseases they are spread very unevenly. The largest single part is respiratory disease: 118.3 against 86.3 per 100,000, 37 per cent higher and 32 of the 54 points on its own. Among 19 territories that is the second highest figure, and the highest of the 17 communities. Next come circulatory disease at 206.7 against 196.4 (4,377 deaths) and tumours at 222.1 against 213.7 (4,863 deaths) — both above the national rate despite the young population.

The cliché the data do not support

The obvious explanation would be diabetes; the Canaries are held to be Spain's diabetes capital. It does not account for the excess measured here. The chapter covering endocrine, nutritional and metabolic causes, in which diabetes makes up the largest share, comes to 27.0 per 100,000 standardised against 26.2 nationally — twelfth of 19 territories. On the crude share of all deaths the islands are in fact below the national figure, 3.22 per cent against 3.46. One caveat belongs with this: at chapter level a diabetic person's death is often assigned to a circulatory cause, so the numbers say something about death certification as well as about the disease.

What holds up as an explanation — and what the regional government is doing

Of the familiar risk factors only one survives the test. In the INE health survey for 2023, published on 27 May 2025, the Canaries record 20.6 per cent obesity among adults, the highest of the 19 territories, against 15.2 per cent nationally. On tobacco the explanation collapses: 16.1 per cent of Canary residents aged 15 and over smoke daily, less than the national 16.6 per cent. On heavy episodic drinking the islands are third lowest, 4.6 against 7.8 per cent. That respiratory mortality reflects the smoking habits of past decades remains possible, but cannot be shown from these data. Air is another candidate: a study led by IDAEA-CSIC, published in Nature in July 2026, puts the number of days with Saharan dust at around 40 per cent of the year — how much of that reaches mortality has not been quantified by any official body. The Consejería de Sanidad presented the Estrategia Autonómica de Promoción de la Salud y el Bienestar en Canarias 2025-2032 on 1 December 2025; it addresses diet, exercise and smoking cessation, but is not built around age-standardised mortality. We have found no explicit response to this finding.

The three screening programmes — and how to check whether you are in them. Bowel cancer: everyone registered as resident in the Canaries aged 50 to 69, a stool test done at home, the invitation arriving by SMS. If none has arrived, ask at your health centre or call the programme office: 922 922 034 for Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 928 899 779 for Las Palmas, Monday to Friday 8am to 2pm. Of 291,088 people invited in 2025, only 38 per cent took part (Gobierno de Canarias, 30 March 2026). Breast cancer: women aged 50 to 69, a mammogram every two years, the invitation sent by letter to the registered address — an out-of-date padrón address is the commonest reason it does not arrive. Cervical cancer: a programme for women aged 25 to 65 has been announced but had not started by the end of July 2026; until it does, screening runs through the family doctor.

A crude death rate does not measure how healthy a population is, it measures how old it is. Where many young people live, few per 100,000 inevitably die. Where many old people live, many do: Asturias reaches 1,297 per 100,000 on the crude measure and still stands better than the Canaries once standardised. So when a region is presented as unusually healthy or unusually sick, the first question is always: has the figure been adjusted for age?

FAQ

So are the Canaries healthy or not?: Measured by the mortality of their age groups they are above the Spanish average: 823.2 against 769.2 per 100,000. That fewer people die in total than elsewhere is down to the younger age structure.
Why does the standardised rate not come from the INE?: The INE publishes deaths by cause, age and region and the population by age, but no standardised rate per region. We combined the two tables ourselves.
Why 17 territories in one place and 19 in another?: Spain has 17 autonomous communities plus the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. We state the basis with every ranking.
How reliable is the figure for Ceuta?: Not very. Behind the 909.9 per 100,000 lie only 522 deaths, so a handful of cases moves the value a long way.
Are there figures for 2025 yet?: For 2025 the INE has so far published only provisional figures, 441,270 nationally. The most recent definitive year is 2024.

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