Quantifying the burden of disease due to premature mortality in Hong Kong using standard expected years of life lost

Abstract

BackgroundTo complement available information on mortality in a population Standard Expected Years of Life Lost (SEYLL), an indicator of premature mortality, is increasingly used to calculate the mortality-associated disease burden. SEYLL consider the age at death and therefore allow a more accurate view on mortality patterns as compared to routinely used measures (e.g. death counts). This study provides a comprehensive assessment of disease and injury SEYLL for Hong Kong in 2010.MethodsTo estimate the SEYLL, life-expectancy at birth was set according to the 2004 Global Burden of Disease study at 82.5 and 80 years for females and males, respectively. Cause of death data for 2010 were corrected for misclassification of cardiovascular and cancer causes. In addition to the baseline estimates, scenario analyses were performed using alternative assumptions on life-expectancy (Hong Kong standard life-expectancy), time-discounting and age-weighting. To estimate a trend of premature mortality a time-series analysis from 2001 to 2010 was conducted.ResultsIn 2010 524,706.5 years were lost due to premature death in Hong Kong with 58.3% of the SEYLL attributable to male deaths. The three overall leading single causes of SEYLL were “trachea, bronchus and lung cancers”, “ischaemic heart disease” and “lower respiratory infections” together accounting for about 29% of the overall SEYLL. Further, self-inflicted injuries (5.6%; ranked 5) and liver cancer (4.9%; ranked 7) were identified as important causes not adequately captured by classical mortality measures. Scenario analyses highlighted that by using a 3% time-discount rate and non-uniform age-weights the SEYLL dropped by 51.6%. Using Hong Kong’s standard life-expectancy values resulted in an overall increase of SEYLL by 10.8% as compared to the baseline SEYLL. Time-series analysis indicates an overall increase of SEYLL by 6.4%. In particular, group I (communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional) conditions showed highest increases with SEYLL-rates per 100,000 in 2010 being 1.4 times higher than 2001.ConclusionsThe study stresses the mortality impact of diseases and injuries that occur in earlier stages of life and thus presents the SEYLL measure as a more sensitive indicator compared to classical mortality indicators. SEYLL provide useful additional information and supplement available death statistics.

The Burden of Premature Mortality in Turkey in 2001 and 2008

“…In Turkey, the burden of premature mortality was estimated to be 4 Chronic non-communicable diseases (Group II) made up 66.7% of the total SEYLL, communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions (Group I) made up 25.6% and accidents and injuries (Group III) made up 7.6% of the total SEYLL in 2001 (Table 1). In 2008, the proportion of chronic non-communicable diseases (Group II) increased to 83.5%, whereas that of communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions (Group I) and accidents and injuries (Group III) decreased to 11.1% and 5.3%, respectively ( Table 1).…”

“…Classical measures of mortality are influenced by diseases seen in older age groups and as a consequence they do not fully represent the burden of premature mortality (2,3). Measures that consider age of death provide a more accurate assessment of mortality because they also measure the losses due to premature mortality (4). Globally, health measures that include the time lost due to premature death are increasingly being used in public health, as up-to-date evidence on trends for age/sex-specific and cause-specific mortality is necessary for the development of health policies (5,6).…”

Years of life lost due to infectious diseases in Poland

“…A number of publications concerning deaths due to infectious diseases weight the number of years of life lost by age and discount the value by time [12–13]. As more extensive comparisons are used in the present study, it uses values calculated with the application of the methods applied in the bibliography cited above.…”

Epidemiología de las muertes prematuras en Chile en la década 2001-2010

“…Si bien, en el mundo se ha registrado una considerable disminución de las muertes prematuras en los últimos decenios 1 , en el caso particular de Estados Unidos en el período 2010-2014, se ha observado que el número de muertes prevenibles por traumatismos no intencionales se ha incrementado 6 ; este hecho debe ser motivo de preocupación y estudio, toda vez que las muertes por este problema de salud corresponden a defunciones no naturales susceptibles de prevenir; el desafío entonces es identificar las causas que originan este tipo de defunciones prematuras, y a partir de esos antecedentes, elaborar políticas y/o programas preventivos orientados a disminuir este daño. El análisis de AVPP por sexo realizado en la presente investigación muestra que la razón hombre/mujer es 2,07, este hallazgo es coincidente con lo señalado en la literatura científica, las publicaciones relativas a esta materia muestran sistemáticamente que el riesgo de muerte prematura es mayor en los hombres que en las mujeres [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] . En el caso particular de los trastornos mentales y del comportamiento y, de los traumatismos, envenenamientos y algunas otras causas externas la razón hombre/mujer es mayor de 5.…”