Mortality Measures Flashcards
Mortality Rate
number of deaths from all causes/ total population
Cause-Specific Mortality Rate
number of deaths from a specific disease/ total population
Proportionate Mortality Rate
number of deaths from a specific disease or condition/ total number of deaths
Case-Fatality Rate
number of deaths from a specific disease or condition/ total number of people with that disease or condition
Case vs Cause Rates
In case-fatality the proportions are those who died from case A over those in total with case A.
In cause-specific the proportions are those who died from case A over the total population.
Of all the people that died in the year 2021, 20.1% were due to heart disease. What is this an example of?
Proportionate Mortality Rate
You are comparing the group of people who died of heart disease to everyone that died that year.
2,000,000 people live with chronic heart disease. Of those people 35% die. What is this an example of?
Case-Fatality Rate
You are comparing the group of people that have chronic heart disease to those who have heart disease and died.
600,000 people die of heart disease in a year of the 375,000,000 million people living in the U.S
Cause-Specific Mortality Rate
Why are we interested in mortality?
If we express mortality in quantitative measures we can pinpoint the differences in risk of dying from a disease.
1. Based on people in different geographic regions
2. Between subgroups of a population
Also helps us determine whether a treatment for a disease has improved over time.
Death
Defined by the underlying cause
The disease or injury which
initiated the train of morbid events leading
directly or indirectly to the death or the
circumstances of the accident or violence
which produced the fatal injury
How are rates misused?
A real rate only applies if the time the person is at risk is included in the denominator.
When is mortality a good reflection of incidence?
- Case Fatality rate is high
- Duration of the disease is short
