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The leading cause of death in 1995 for females was cancer (all types), which accounted for 26 percent of all deaths. Although female age-standardised rates for cancer are lower than for males, female rates have increased by 5 percent over the last ten years, while male rates have dropped 3 percent. Breast cancer was the leading cause of cancer death for females in 1995 (25.5 deaths per 100,000 population) and although numbers of deaths have increased by 21 percent over the last decade, age-standardised rates have increased by only 2 percent.
Since 1986 female lung cancer mortality rates have increased by 36 percent, from 14.3 deaths per 100,000 population to 19.4 deaths per 100,000 in 1995. Although males are still more likely to die from lung cancer than females, the gap between the sexes has narrowed over the last decade.
Males were three times more likely than females to die from lung cancer in 1986, but only twice as likely in 1995. The reasons for these trends are unclear because of the lag time associated with the effects of smoking on health. However, census data shows that female smoking rates have declined at a slower rate than those for males over the past decade or so.
In 1971, 39.6 percent of men were regular smokers compared with 31.7 percent of women. By 1996, male and female smoking rates had almost converged; 22.8 percent of all women aged 15 and over were regular smokers compared with 24.8 percent of men.
A cause of death specific to women is cervical cancer. Each year about 80 New Zealand women die from cervical cancer and 200 women are diagnosed as having invasive cancer of the cervix. Māori women are over two-and-a-half times more likely to develop the disease as non-Māori women.
For women in the 25-44 age group the leading cause of death is cancer and 1 in 3 of these deaths are from breast cancer. Diseases of the circulatory system (mainly heart attacks) also begin to impact on this age group. Among women in the 45 to 64 age group, over half of deaths are from cancer with breast cancer being most common. Diseases of the circulatory system (eg ischaemic heart disease), lung and bowel cancers and diseases of the respiratory system are other common causes of death. From age 65 years onwards, circulatory diseases, such as ischaemic disease and strokes are the major cause of death.
In 1995 almost half (49 percent) of all female deaths in this age group were from circulatory diseases, while a further 22 percent were from various types of cancer and 13 percent from respiratory diseases.
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