Eurostat

Causes of Death data refer to the underlying cause which - according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) - is the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury"."

Hospital beds provide information on health care capacities, i.e. on the maximum number of patients who can be treated by hospitals. Curative care (or acute care) beds in hospitals are beds that are available for curative care. These beds are a subgroup of total hospital beds which are defined as all hospital beds which are regularly maintained and staffed and immediately available for the care of admitted patients; both occupied and unoccupied beds are covered. Hospitals are defined according to the classification of health care providers of the System of Health Accounts (SHA); all public and private hospitals should be covered.

Data on dentists should refer to those “immediately serving patients”, i.e. dentists who have direct contact with patients as consumers of health care services. In the context of comparing health care services across Member States, Eurostat considers that this is the concept which best describes the availability of health care resources. However, Member States use different concepts when they report the number of health care professionals. Therefore for some countries the data might refer to dentists ‘licensed to practice’ (i.e. successfully graduated dentists irrespective whether they see patients or not) or they might include dentists who work in their profession but do not see patients (i.e. they work in research, administration etc.). Please have a look in the annexes of the metadata to see for which concept these data refer to for each country.

Hospital beds provide information on health care capacities, i.e. on the maximum number of patients who can be treated by hospitals. Psychiatric care beds in hospitals are beds accommodating patients with mental health problems. These beds are a subgroup of total hospital beds which are defined as all hospital beds which are regularly maintained and staffed and immediately available for the care of admitted patients; both occupied and unoccupied beds are covered. Hospitals are defined according to the classification of health care providers of the System of Health Accounts (SHA); all public and private hospitals should be covered.