Finland's mortality rate decreased by 4.3 percent in 2023, compared to the previous year, according to Statistics Finland.
The main cause of death last year was cardiovascular disease, which was responsible for nearly a third of all fatalities in the country.
Cancer related illness claimed the second-most lives in Finland in 2023, causing around 20 percent of deaths.
The third most common cause of death were memory-related maladies such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease, which caused nearly one-in-five deaths.
According to Statistics Finland, more than 2,200 people died from Covid last year, about half the number that succumbed to the upper respiratory illness in 2022.
The agency also noted that no one in Finland died from adverse reactions to Covid vaccines.
Drugs and alcohol
There were 310 drug-related deaths last year. The agency said drug deaths among youths nearly doubled compared to 2022.
Drug-related deaths were most common among people between the ages of 15 and 24, a group that also saw the biggest increase in drug-caused fatalities.
One in four deaths of people in that age group last year were drug related, the agency's actuary Kati Taskinen explained in a press release.
She said last year's tally of youth and young adult drug deaths were the highest recorded since the agency began tracking such figures in 2006.
More than 1,700 people died from alcohol-related disease and accidental alcohol poisoning last year, which was an increase of around 60 deaths compared to 2022.
"The difference between men and women in alcohol-related mortality has narrowed, but men's mortality was still clearly higher than women's. Last year, the age-adjusted death rate for men due to alcohol was three times that of women," Airi Pajunen, the agency's chief actuary, said in the release.
For the first time, last year saw more people over the age of 65 dying from alcohol-related causes than their working-age counterparts.
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