Differential mortality risks and causes of death among non-western foreigners in the Netherlands

Joop Garssen, Vivian Bos, Anton Kunst en Anouschka van der MeulenPaper for the European Population Conference, Warsaw, 26-30 August 2003.For most ages, non-western foreigners in the Netherlands have a higher mortality risk than native Dutch people. For infants the risk is 35 percent higher. Young children with a non-western background have higher mortality risks from both external and natural causes. Among foreigners aged 15-29 years a large part of mortality is from non-natural causes, with above average rates of murder/manslaughter and suicide. In the past decades the mortality risk among adult Turkish men has developed unfavourably. Their risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases or cancer, especially lung cancer, is relatively high. By contrast, Moroccan men aged 35 and older have a considerably lower mortality risk. Their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease in their forties, fifties or sixties, is only half that for native Dutch men. Their mortality risk with respect to lung cancer is also much smaller.