scholarly journals Modeling Mortality by Causes of Death in South Africa Using Log-linear Analysis

Author(s):  
Exaverio Chireshe

Abstract This study aimed at identifying underlying patterns in mortality due to causes of death in South Africa using mortality statistics from 2005 to 2015 obtained from Statistics South Africa. Log-linear analysis was used in this study on mortality by causes of death dataset having three variables, cause of death (C), province (P) and year (Y). Log-linear analysis was preferred because of its capability to tease out relationships among variables. Results revealed that there are variations in mortality due to causes of death. Mortality was found to differ widely across the country, among provinces. It is recommended that prevention and management policies for HIV and TB be intensified since they still remain South Africa's major causes of death. A replication of the study could be done in another developing country using latest data to see if it will yield the same results. A multi-population mortality modeling could also be carried out using the same approach.

Stanovnistvo ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Ivan Marinkovic

The structure of the leading causes of death in Serbia has considerably changed in the last half century. Diseases which presented the main threat to the population a few decades ago are now at the level of a statistical error. On the one side are causes which drastically changed their share in total mortality in this time interval, while others have shown stability and persistence among the basic causes of death. Acute infectious diseases "have been replaced" with chronic noninfectious diseases, due to the improvement of general and health conditions. One of the consequences of such changes is increased life expectancy and a larger share of older population which resulted in cardiovascular diseases and tumors to dominate more and more in total mortality. Convergent trends in the structure of the leading causes of death in Serbia from the middle of the 20th century are the reasons why there are considerably fewer diseases and causes with a significant rate in total population mortality at the beginning of the 21st century. During the 1950s, there were five groups of diseases and causes which participated individually with more than 10% of population mortality (infectious diseases, heart and circulatory diseases, respiratory diseases, some perinatal conditions and undefined states) while at the beginning of the new century there were only two such groups (cardiovascular diseases and tumors). Identical trends exist in all European countries, as well as in the rest of the developed world. The leading causes of death in Serbia are cardiovascular diseases. An average of somewhat over 57.000 people died annually in the period from 2007 - 2009, which represents 55.5% of total population mortality. Women are more numerous among the deceased and this difference is increasing due to population feminization. The most frequent cause of death in Serbia, after heart and circulatory diseases, are tumors, which caused 21,415 deaths in 2009. Neoplasms are responsible for one fifth of all deaths. Their number has doubled in three decades, from 9,107 in 1975 to about 20,000 at the beginning of the 21st century, whereby tumors have become the fastest growing cause of death. Least changes in absolute number of deaths in the last half century were marked among violent deaths. Observed by gender, men are in average three times more numerous among violent deaths than women. In the middle of the 20th century in Serbia, one third of the deaths caused by violence were younger than 25 and as many as one half were younger than 35 years old. Only one tenth (11%) of total number of violent deaths were from the age group of 65 or older. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century (2009), the share of population younger than 25 in the total number of violent deaths was decreased four times (and amounted to 8%). At the same time, the rate of those older than 65 or more quadrupled (amounted to 39%).


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. A52.2-A52
Author(s):  
Kerry Wilson ◽  
Tahira Kootbodien ◽  
Nisha Naicker

Mining is a high-risk industry with both continued accidents and occupational disease, despite controls introduced in the industry. In this study, we looked at the sex differences in mortality between male and female miners in South Africa.MethodsThe use of vital registration data for monitoring mortality in miners has largely been unexplored in South Africa. Statistics South Africa provides data from 2013 to 2015 which was used in students-t-tests along with proportion tests to investigate differences between death in all women and women miners along with differences in deaths in male miners and women miners. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to calculate mortality odds ratios (MORs) for the underlying cause of death in these groups, with adjustments for age, education level, province of death and smoking status.ResultsOf the 8769 deaths recorded with occupation miner ion the years 2013–2015, only 5.7% were in females. Significant differences between all women and women miners were found in age at death (58.8 vs 47.8), no 1 cause of death (ill-defined vs TB) and education (43.6% vs 63.6%). MORs were significantly increased in women miners for TB, HIV and external causes of death compared to all women while being protected from lifestyle and chronic diseases. Women miners compared to male miners had increased odds of HIV death and lifestyle diseases but a similar risk of external causes of death.DiscussionWomen miners appear to die at significantly younger ages than both male miners and other women despite a higher level of education. This may be due to the increased mortality due to HIV and external causes of death. Thus increased controls are required on mines to protect the health of women miners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-32
Author(s):  
Nataša Rosić

Introduction: Data on the cause of death form the cornerstone for analyzing the health situation and disease in countries, and they make a major contribution to building evidence for health policies. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which diagnoses from the group - Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99), International Classification of Diseases (ICD - Revision X) were used as the main cause of death in Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia, and Slovenia in the ten-year period, 2007 - 2016. Materials and methods: Methods of descriptive and analytical statistics were used in this research. An analysis of data on the causes of death (R00-R99 ICD - Revision X), by gender, during the ten-year period (2007 - 2016) was performed. Linear regression was also used as an analytical method to analyze the trend. Results: During the ten-year period, in Serbia, the R00-R99 diagnoses were among the five most common groups of diagnoses of death, i.e., in each year they took third place, with a percentage of 4.7%. In the observed period, in the surrounding countries, there was an increase in the death rate in Slovenia, with the highest rate in 2016 (19.9), while in Croatia there was a decrease in the death rate related to the diagnoses from group XVIII ICD - X (R00-R99). In Macedonia, the rate had a linear trend, with a slight decline in 2012 (52.3) and 2013 (58.7). In the observed period, an increase in the death rate of the population of Serbia with an unknown cause of death was observed, with particularly high rates in 2009 and 2016. Comparative analysis has shown that R00-R99 diagnoses are represented more in the mortality statistics of Serbia than in Slovenia and Croatia, and less than in Northern Macedonia. Conclusion: Urgent interventions are needed to improve the quality of mortality statistics and data on the causes of death in the described countries.


2006 ◽  
Vol 130 (12) ◽  
pp. 1780-1785
Author(s):  
Melissa W. Taggart ◽  
Randall Craver

Abstract Context.—Childhood mortality statistics are based on death certificates. The causes of death listed on death certificates may not be confirmed by autopsy findings, and mortality statistics may reflect deaths of many children with chronic disease. The diseases responsible for nontraumatic deaths of previously healthy children cannot be determined from these statistics. Objective.—To identify causes of nontraumatic death in previously healthy or near-healthy children presenting to a children's hospital. Design.—Retrospective review of autopsy protocols from 572 children who died at Children's Hospital of New Orleans in Louisiana between 1985 and 2003, with the premise that autopsy was done after most deaths of previously healthy or near-healthy children. Causes of death were grouped by disease processes and age groups and were compared to premortem clinical diagnoses. Results.—Eighty-eight autopsy protocols were from children who were previously healthy or near healthy before the hospital admission during which they died. The median age was 11.4 months and the median length of stay was 2 days. Infection, primarily of the central nervous system and systemic (septicemia), was the most common cause of death (53%, 47 cases). Neoplasia, primarily of the central nervous and hematologic systems, was the second most common cause (15%, 13 cases). The predominant organ system involved with disease was the nervous system (36%, 32 cases). Unrecognized congenital disorders were found in approximately 10% of the cases. Conclusions.—Infectious diseases are a frequent cause of death in previously healthy children. Fatal diseases most frequently affect the nervous system. Autopsy provides valuable information in the death of healthy children.


2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (31) ◽  
pp. 5612-5621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Rybicki ◽  
Inga Hitzeroth ◽  
Ann Meyers ◽  
Maria Santos ◽  
Andres Wigdorovitz

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sefer Elezkurtaj ◽  
Selina Greuel ◽  
Jana Ihlow ◽  
Edward Georg Michaelis ◽  
Philip Bischoff ◽  
...  

AbstractInfection by the new corona virus strain SARS-CoV-2 and its related syndrome COVID-19 has been associated with more than two million deaths worldwide. Patients of higher age and with preexisting chronic health conditions are at an increased risk of fatal disease outcome. However, detailed information on causes of death and the contribution of pre-existing health conditions to death yet is missing, which can be reliably established by autopsy only. We performed full body autopsies on 26 patients that had died after SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 at the Charité University Hospital Berlin, Germany, or at associated teaching hospitals. We systematically evaluated causes of death and pre-existing health conditions. Additionally, clinical records and death certificates were evaluated. We report findings on causes of death and comorbidities of 26 decedents that had clinically presented with severe COVID-19. We found that septic shock and multi organ failure was the most common immediate cause of death, often due to suppurative pulmonary infection. Respiratory failure due to diffuse alveolar damage presented as immediate cause of death in fewer cases. Several comorbidities, such as hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and obesity were present in the vast majority of patients. Our findings reveal that causes of death were directly related to COVID-19 in the majority of decedents, while they appear not to be an immediate result of preexisting health conditions and comorbidities. We therefore suggest that the majority of patients had died of COVID-19 with only contributory implications of preexisting health conditions to the mechanism of death.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
L Ishitani ◽  
R Teixeira ◽  
D Abreu ◽  
L Paixão ◽  
E França

Abstract Background Quality of cause-of-death information is fundamental for health planning. Traditionally, this quality has been assessed by the analysis of ill-defined causes from chapter XVIII of the International Classification of Diseases - 10th revision (ICD-10). However, studies have considered other useless diagnoses for public health purposes, defined, in conjunction with ill-defined causes, as garbage codes (GC). In Brazil, despite the high completeness of the Mortality Information System, approximately 30% of deaths are attributable to GCs. This study aims to analyze the frequency of GCs in Belo Horizonte municipality, the capital of Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Methods Data of deaths from 2011 to 2013 in Belo Horizonte were analyzed. GCs were classified according to the GBD 2015 study list. These codes were classified in: a) GCs from chapter XVIII of ICD-10 (GC-R), and b) GC from other chapters of ICD-10 (GC-nonR). Proportions of GC were calculated by sex, age, and place of occurrence. Results In Belo Horizonte, from the total of 44,123 deaths, 5.5% were classified as GC-R. The majority of GCs were GC-nonR (25% of total deaths). We observed a higher proportion of GC in children (1 to 4 years) and in people aged over 60 years. GC proportion was also higher in females, except in the age-groups under 1 year and 30-59 years. Home deaths (n = 7,760) had higher proportions of GCs compared with hospital deaths (n = 30,182), 36.9% and 28.7%, respectively. The leading GCs were the GC-R other ill-defined and unspecified causes of death (ICD-10 code R99)), and the GCs-nonR unspecified pneumonia (J18.9), unspecified stroke (I64), and unspecified septicemia (A41.9). Conclusions Analysis of GCs is essential to evaluate the quality of mortality information. Key messages Analysis of ill-defined causes (GC-R) is not sufficient to evaluate the quality of information on causes of death. Causes of death analysis should consider the total GC, in order to advance the discussion and promote adequate intervention on the quality of mortality statistics.


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