An average of 30 people die in unexplained circumstances across Tayside and Fife every year.
National Records of Scotland (NRS) data has shown more than 420 deaths have been classified as undetermined since 2001 the same verdict given in the high-profile case of Kirkcaldy father Sheku Bayoh who died in police custody.
The statistics covering deaths from external factors across the four local authority areas of Perth and Kinross, Fife, Angus and Dundee reveal more than 7,000 people have died from accidents, falls, poisonings, transport accidents, assaults, self-harm and other undetermined factors over the last 14 years.
In Fife there were 227 deaths recorded as undetermined over that period compared with 55 in Angus, 77 in Dundee and 69 in Perth and Kinross.
That means an average of 30 people die across the four areas every year with no clear explanation.
The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) is still investigating the death of Mr Bayoh in May this year and his case still falls into the undetermined bracket, described as, “cases where it is not clear whether the death was the result of intentional self-harm, an accident or an assault”.
A death is classed as accidental on the basis of what was recorded on the death certificate or of information from other official sources such as the Crown Office, a pathologist, or the certifying doctor.
Almost 1,400 people died from falls across Tayside and Fife since 2001, an average of around 100 per year and the biggest killer on the list.
In contrast just nine people died from assaults each year and 44 from transport accidents.
There were 1,750 accidental deaths registered across the country last year, 86 more than in the previous year.
Slightly more than half of all accidental deaths are men a percentage that has not changed significantly year on year since 1979.
Figures from the NRS show 411 people from Courier Country have perished from various forms of accidental poisoning since 2001.
Scottish community safety manager for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Elizabeth Lumsden, called for health boards to provide more detail when reporting accidental deaths.
She said: “The problem for us is we are up against it all the time when dealing with these kind of statistics.
“Some hospitals and health boards are better than others at identifying a rise in the likes of poisonings but there’s a huge number that simply don’t provide any level of detail.”