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Palacio-Mejía LS, Hernández-Ávila JE, Hernández-Ávila M, Dyer-Leal D, Barranco A, Quezada-Sánchez AD, Alvarez-Aceves M, Cortés-Alcalá R, Fernández-Wheatley JL, Ordoñez-Hernández I, Vielma-Orozco E, Muradás-Troitiño MDLC, Muro-Orozco O, Navarro-Luévano E, Rodriguez-González K, Gabastou JM, López-Ridaura R, López-Gatell H. Leading causes of excess mortality in Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2021: A death certificates study in a middle-income country. LANCET REGIONAL HEALTH. AMERICAS 2022; 13:100303. [PMID: 35782204 PMCID: PMC9230439 DOI: 10.1016/j.lana.2022.100303] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Background The death toll after SARS-CoV-2 emergence includes deaths directly or indirectly associated with COVID-19. Mexico reported 325,415 excess deaths, 34.4% of them not directly related to COVID-19 in 2020. In this work, we aimed to analyse temporal changes in the distribution of the leading causes of mortality produced by COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico to understand excess mortality not directly related to the virus infection. Methods We did a longitudinal retrospective study of the leading causes of mortality and their variation with respect to cause-specific expected deaths in Mexico from January 2020 through December 2021 using death certificate information. We fitted a Poisson regression model to predict cause-specific mortality during the pandemic period, based on the 2015–2019 registered mortality. We estimated excess deaths as a weekly difference between expected and observed deaths and added up for the entire period. We expressed all-cause and cause-specific excess mortality as a percentage change with respect to predicted deaths by our model. Findings COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in 2020–2021 (439,582 deaths). All-cause total excess mortality was 600,590 deaths (38⋅2% [95% CI: 36·0 to 40·4] over expected). The largest increases in cause-specific mortality, occurred in diabetes (36·8% over expected), respiratory infections (33·3%), ischaemic heart diseases (32·5%) and hypertensive diseases (25·0%). The cause-groups that experienced significant decreases with respect to the expected pre-pandemic mortality were infectious and parasitic diseases (-20·8%), skin diseases (-17·5%), non-traffic related accidents (-16·7%) and malignant neoplasm (-5·3%). Interpretation Mortality from COVID-19 became the first cause of death in 2020–2021, the increase in other causes of death may be explained by changes in the health service utilization patterns caused by hospital conversion or fear of the population using them. Cause-misclassification cannot be ruled out. Funding This study was funded by Conacyt.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lina Sofía Palacio-Mejía
- Ph.D. in Population Studies, Researcher for México-Conacyt, National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
| | - Juan Eugenio Hernández-Ávila
- Sc.D. in Epidemiology, Researcher in Medical Science, National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
| | - Mauricio Hernández-Ávila
- M.D., Ms.C., Sc.D. in Epidemiology, Director of Economic and Social Benefits, Mexican Institute of Social Security, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Dwight Dyer-Leal
- Ph.D. in Political Science, General Directorate of Health Information, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Arturo Barranco
- Master in Demography, General Directorate of Health Information, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Amado D Quezada-Sánchez
- Master in Applied Statistics, Researcher in Medical Sciences, National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
| | - Mariana Alvarez-Aceves
- ScD. in Economic Administrative Sciences, Postdoctoral fellow, National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
| | - Ricardo Cortés-Alcalá
- M.D., M.P.H. General Director of Health Promotion, Ministry of Health, Mexico City, Mexico
| | | | - Iliana Ordoñez-Hernández
- Graduate in Design of Human Settlements, National Registry of Population and Identity, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Edgar Vielma-Orozco
- Master in Economy, National Institute of Statistics and Geography, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - María de la Cruz Muradás-Troitiño
- Ph.D. in Population Studies, Coordinator of Sociodemographic and Prospective Studies of the General Secretariat of the National Population Council, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Omar Muro-Orozco
- M.S. National Institute of Statistics and Geography, Aguascalientes, Mexico
| | | | | | | | - Ruy López-Ridaura
- Ms.C., Sc.D. in Nutritional Epidemiology, Director General of the National Center for Preventive Programs and Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Hugo López-Gatell
- M.D., Ms.C., Ph.D. in Epidemiology, Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Ministry of Health, Mexico City, Mexico
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