Zur Übersterblichkeit in Deutschland in den Jahren 2020 und 2021

Baum, K

doi:10.1055/a-1715-7711

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In all these results obtained by life tables of recent years of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, and in most other models [5][6][7][8][9], the main point coincides with our results: for 2020, the number of deaths is close to the expected value, whereas for 2021, there is noticeable excess mortality, and for 2022, there is a huge mortality excess, which has not been observed during the last decades. This is shown in Figure 2.…”

Section: Life Tablesupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Therefore, it is not surprising that several attempts have been made to estimate the increase in all-cause mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. As the death of a person is a clear diagnostic fact and highly reliable data on mortality are available for several countries, one may expect that the question of whether more people have died than is usually expected can be answered.…”

Section: All-cause Mortality: Estimating the Burden Of The Covid-19 P...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A first and comparatively simple approach to take into account population size and historical trends effects is the attempt to predict the further course of the number of deaths from observed data in previous years using regression methods. In a study by Baum [ 5 ], the course of the observed increase in the number of deaths in Germany from 2001 to 2021 compared to the year 2000 was fitted with a polynomial function of order two, and the yearly residuals were used to estimate the yearly increase or decrease in mortality, resulting in an estimated increase in mortality in the years 2020 and 2021 of about 11,000 additional deaths each. While the advantage of this approach is, on the one hand, that no parameter choices have to be made, on the other hand, this is, at the same time, the weakness of this approach: as every data point is given the same weight, unique outliers may lead to biased estimations, and developments depending on more complex circumstances cannot be incorporated in this approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimation of Excess Mortality in Germany During 2020-2022

Kuhbandner¹,

Reitzner²

2023

Cureus

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Background This study estimates the burden of COVID-19 on mortality in Germany. It is expected that many people have died because of the new COVID-19 virus who otherwise would not have died. Estimating the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality by the number of officially reported COVID-19-related deaths has been proven to be difficult due to several reasons. Because of this, a better approach, which has been used in many studies, is to estimate the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic by calculating the excess mortality for the pandemic years. An advantage of such an approach is that additional negative impacts of a pandemic on mortality are covered as well, such as a possible pandemic-induced strain on the healthcare system. Methods To calculate the excess mortality in Germany for the pandemic years 2020 to 2022, we compare the reported number of all-cause deaths (i.e., the number of deaths independently of underlying causes) with the number of statistically expected all-cause deaths. For this, the state-of-the-art method of actuarial science, based on population tables, life tables, and longevity trends, is used to estimate the expected number of all-cause deaths from 2020 to 2022 if there had been no pandemic. Results The results show that the observed number of deaths in 2020 was close to the expected number with respect to the empirical standard deviation; approximately 4,000 excess deaths occurred. By contrast, in 2021, the observed number of deaths was two empirical standard deviations above the expected number and even more than four times the empirical standard deviation in 2022. In total, the number of excess deaths in the year 2021 is about 34,000 and in 2022 about 66,000 deaths, yielding a cumulated 100,000 excess deaths in both years. The high excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 was mainly due to an increase in deaths in the age groups between 15 and 79 years and started to accumulate only from April 2021 onward. A similar mortality pattern was observed for stillbirths with an increase of about 9.4% in the second quarter and 19.4% in the fourth quarter of the year 2021 compared to previous years. Conclusions These findings indicate that something must have happened in spring 2021 that led to a sudden and sustained increase in mortality, although no such effects on mortality had been observed during the early COVID-19 pandemic so far. Possible influencing factors are explored in the discussion.

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Section: Life Tablesupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: All-cause Mortality: Estimating the Burden Of The Covid-19 P...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimation of Excess Mortality in Germany During 2020-2022

Kuhbandner¹,

Reitzner²

2023

Cureus

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“…Age-stratification has been also to be important in previous assessments for specific countries. 24,25 Germany is a classic example. Our age-adjusted estimate is 55,000 excess deaths, while without age-adjustment we calculated 129,000 excess deaths and Lancet calculated 203,000 excess deaths -compared with 111,000 COVID-19 reported deaths.…”

Section: Nepomuceno Et Al Have Also Assessed the Impact Of Different ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of pandemic excess mortality in 2020-2021 across different empirical calculations

Levitt¹,

Zonta

Ioannidis

2022

Preprint

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Different modeling approaches can be used to calculate excess deaths for the COVID-19 pandemic period. We compared 6 calculations of excess deaths (4 previously published and two new ones that we performed with and without age-adjustment) for 2020-2021. With each approach, we calculated excess deaths metrics and the ratio R of excess deaths over recorded COVID-19 deaths. The main analysis focused on 33 high-income countries with weekly deaths in the Human Mortality Database (HMD at mortality.org) and reliable death registration. Secondary analyses compared calculations for other countries, whenever available. Across the 33 high-income countries, excess deaths were 2.0-2.8 million without age-adjustment, and 1.6-2.1 million with age-adjustment with large differences across countries. In our analyses after age-adjustment, 8 of 33 countries had no overall excess deaths; there was a death deficit in children; and 0.478 million (29.7%) of the excess deaths were in people <65 years old. In countries like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain excess death estimates differed 2 to 4-fold between highest and lowest figures. The R values’ range exceeded 0.3 in all 33 countries. In 16 of 33 countries, the range of R exceeded 1. In 25 of 33 countries some calculations suggest R>1 (excess deaths exceeding COVID-19 deaths) while others suggest R<1 (excess deaths smaller than COVID-19 deaths). Inferred data from 4 evaluations for 42 countries and from 3 evaluations for another 98 countries are very tenuous Estimates of excess deaths are analysis-dependent and age-adjustment is important to consider. Excess deaths may be lower than previously calculated.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTExcess deaths are a key metric for assessing the impact of a pandemic. They reflect the composite impact of deaths from infection, from indirect pandemic effects, and from the measures taken. Different modeling approaches can be used to calculate excess deaths for the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we compare four previous calculations of excess deaths and two new ones that we performed with and without adjusting for changing age structure in the estimation. Proper age-adjustment results in substantial reduction in estimates of excess deaths for 2020-2021. While results from different calculation methods are correlated, the absolute differences in estimated excess deaths are very high in most countries. Extrapolations to countries without reliable death registration is extremely tenuous.

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Longevity trend in Germany

Reitzner

2023

Eur. Actuar. J.

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In Germany, a trend for decreasing mortality probabilities has been observed in the last 50 years, yielding an increasing life expectancy. The German Actuarial Association DAV offers a standard method for modeling this longevity trend in calculations concerning life insurance by using the life table DAV 2004R. In this note it is investigated, whether or to which extent the longevity function of the DAV 2004R can be used for calculating the expected total number of deaths in Germany.

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Zur Übersterblichkeit in Deutschland in den Jahren 2020 und 2021

Cited by 4 publications

References 9 publications

Estimation of Excess Mortality in Germany During 2020-2022

Estimation of Excess Mortality in Germany During 2020-2022

Comparison of pandemic excess mortality in 2020-2021 across different empirical calculations

Longevity trend in Germany

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