Reviewed: 08/08/2025

Mortality is the number of deaths, in general or specific to a cause, in a particular population. It is specifically used as a rate to measure the number of deaths on a large scale (in this case per 100,000), which is calculated to allow comparison between different population sizes and demographics.

Premature Mortality

Premature mortality is a good high-level indicator of the overall health of a population, being correlated with many other measures of population health: there are significant differences between the premature death rates in different areas, reflecting a wide range of underlying differences between these populations.

Bolton's mortality rate from all causes, all ages, by gender

The latest release of data is for 2021-23, which gives Bolton an overall under 75 mortality rate of 441 per 100,000 population; this rate is lower for women (330 per 100k) than men (552 per 100k) residing in Bolton.

Bolton is as expected when comparing them to the North West region for the majority of under 75 premature mortality indicators; being significantly worse than the national benchmark for cardiovascular diseases, heart disease, cancer, liver disease and respiratory disease.

Bolton has the 24th highest (out of 151 local authorities) rate for premature mortality of all causes. Blackpool is the worst (1) followed by Manchester, Kingston upon Hull and Liverpool.

Preventable Mortality

A death is preventable if, in the light of understanding of the determinants of health at the time of death, all or most deaths from that cause (subject to age limits if appropriate) could be avoided by public health interventions in the broadest sense.

Similarly to premature mortality indicators, Bolton sits around mid-table, when comparing them to the rest of the North West for the majority of preventable mortality indicators, larger differences are only seen when broken down by gender.

The Bolton picture

• Fingertips mortality profile - from OHID
• Excess deaths dashboard - from OHID
• Global burden of disease - from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. Visualisation showing cause of deaths/ years lived with disability/ disability adjusted life years, age and gender breakdowns and change over time for a range of geographies. Bolton level currently withdrawn but hoped to be back soon.
• Excess winter deaths in Bolton - report from LG inform

Further useful links

• Excess mortality within England - Official statistics from the ONS
• Office of National Statistics - Preventable Mortality

Climate related mortality - also see Climate emergency - climate adaptation

• Summer/ heat
  • Mortality insights - from Government Actuary's Department (GAD)
  • Climate related mortality - briefing from ONS
  • Heat mortality monitoring report - from UKHSA
  • First analysis to estimate number of heatwave deaths linked to climate change - from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
  • Excess mortality during heat periods - from ONS and UKHSA
  • Climate change and heat-related mortality: will ‘summer crises’ become part of the NHS’s future? - blog from The King's Fund
• Winter/ cold
  • Winter mortality in England and Wales briefing - from ONS
  • Winter mortality in England and Wales datasets - from ONS