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Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities

BACKGROUND: During the coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, population’s mortality has been affected not only by the risk of infection itself, but also through deferred care for other causes and changes in lifestyle. This study aims to investigate excess mortality by cause of death and soc...

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Autores principales: Oh, Jieun, Min, Jieun, Kang, Cinoo, Kim, Ejin, Lee, Jung Pyo, Kim, Ho, Lee, Whanhee
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9730675/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36476143
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14785-3
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author Oh, Jieun
Min, Jieun
Kang, Cinoo
Kim, Ejin
Lee, Jung Pyo
Kim, Ho
Lee, Whanhee
author_facet Oh, Jieun
Min, Jieun
Kang, Cinoo
Kim, Ejin
Lee, Jung Pyo
Kim, Ho
Lee, Whanhee
author_sort Oh, Jieun
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: During the coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, population’s mortality has been affected not only by the risk of infection itself, but also through deferred care for other causes and changes in lifestyle. This study aims to investigate excess mortality by cause of death and socio-demographic context during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea.  METHODS: Mortality data within the period 2015–2020 were obtained from Statistics Korea, and deaths from COVID-19 were excluded. We estimated 2020 daily excess deaths for all causes, the eight leading causes of death, and according to individual characteristics, using a two-stage interrupted time series design accounting for temporal trends and variations in other risk factors. RESULTS: During the pandemic period (February 18 to December 31, 2020), an estimated 663 (95% empirical confidence interval [eCI]: -2356–3584) excess deaths occurred in South Korea. Mortality related to respiratory diseases decreased by 4371 (3452–5480), whereas deaths due to metabolic diseases and ill-defined causes increased by 808 (456–1080) and 2756 (2021–3378), respectively. The increase in all-cause deaths was prominent in those aged 65–79 years (941, 88–1795), with an elementary school education or below (1757, 371–3030), or who were single (785, 384–1174), while a decrease in deaths was pronounced in those with a college-level or higher educational attainment (1471, 589–2328). CONCLUSION: No evidence of a substantial increase in all-cause mortality was found during the 2020 pandemic period in South Korea, as a result of a large decrease in deaths related to respiratory diseases that offset increased mortality from metabolic disease and diseases of ill-defined cause. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected those of lower socioeconomic status and has exacerbated inequalities in mortality. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14785-3.
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spelling pubmed-97306752022-12-09 Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities Oh, Jieun Min, Jieun Kang, Cinoo Kim, Ejin Lee, Jung Pyo Kim, Ho Lee, Whanhee BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: During the coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, population’s mortality has been affected not only by the risk of infection itself, but also through deferred care for other causes and changes in lifestyle. This study aims to investigate excess mortality by cause of death and socio-demographic context during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea.  METHODS: Mortality data within the period 2015–2020 were obtained from Statistics Korea, and deaths from COVID-19 were excluded. We estimated 2020 daily excess deaths for all causes, the eight leading causes of death, and according to individual characteristics, using a two-stage interrupted time series design accounting for temporal trends and variations in other risk factors. RESULTS: During the pandemic period (February 18 to December 31, 2020), an estimated 663 (95% empirical confidence interval [eCI]: -2356–3584) excess deaths occurred in South Korea. Mortality related to respiratory diseases decreased by 4371 (3452–5480), whereas deaths due to metabolic diseases and ill-defined causes increased by 808 (456–1080) and 2756 (2021–3378), respectively. The increase in all-cause deaths was prominent in those aged 65–79 years (941, 88–1795), with an elementary school education or below (1757, 371–3030), or who were single (785, 384–1174), while a decrease in deaths was pronounced in those with a college-level or higher educational attainment (1471, 589–2328). CONCLUSION: No evidence of a substantial increase in all-cause mortality was found during the 2020 pandemic period in South Korea, as a result of a large decrease in deaths related to respiratory diseases that offset increased mortality from metabolic disease and diseases of ill-defined cause. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected those of lower socioeconomic status and has exacerbated inequalities in mortality. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14785-3. BioMed Central 2022-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9730675/ /pubmed/36476143 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14785-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Oh, Jieun
Min, Jieun
Kang, Cinoo
Kim, Ejin
Lee, Jung Pyo
Kim, Ho
Lee, Whanhee
Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities
title Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities
title_full Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities
title_fullStr Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities
title_full_unstemmed Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities
title_short Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities
title_sort excess mortality and the covid-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9730675/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36476143
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14785-3
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