a) The average annual rate of change (in the table denoted as 00/08) refers to the period from 2000 up to the last year, for which data are available, but at least 2006.
The average values for the European Union (EU) were computed by BASYS. In doing so, for the old (EU15) as well as for the new member states (EU12) 2 countries with missing values were accepted. The values for the EU were computed when data for both subregions were available. The life expectancy was computed by weigting the data of the member states with the corresponding group of population.
The vector data for constructing the maps emanate from the OpenStreetMap project.