Mortality rates for certain age groups of children and adolescents in four towns of western Croatia in the 19th century

Aims: Mortality trend analysis among children and adolescents during the 19th century in the following towns in Western Croatia: Rijeka, Bakar, Kastav and Grobnik.Sources and methods: The analysis is based on data collected in the Registry of Deaths kept at the State Archives in Rijeka. The causes of death were systematised according to the current International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10).Results: It was found that of the 10,168 deceased divided into seven age groups, children and adolescents under 19 represented 63.4 % of all deceased. Of the total mortality, infants and children under one year of age constituted 25.2 %, children between one and three years of age 24.0 %, between four and six 6.9 % and between seven and nineteen 7.3 %. The most common causes of death were analysed in two groups of children (0–6 and 7–19 years of age): In both of these groups the most common causes of death were mostly the ones described in chapter XVIII according to ICD-10, i.e. symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical findings that occur significantly more among pre-schoolers than school children (62.7 % vs. 37.6 %). Those are followed by certain infectious and parasitic diseases that are less common in the younger group and significantly more common in the older group (14.6 % vs. 35.2 %). Diseases of the respiratory system are almost equally divided between the two groups (10.5 % vs. 11.6 %).Conclusion: By applying adjusted descriptive analytical methods it is possible to reconstruct basic mortality indicators from the past using registries of deaths.