The main causes of Death in Mexico
The Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is commemorated in Mexico every November 2nd. It is a celebration of pre-Hispanic roots were people pay tribute to the dead. In 2003, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared this holiday as a “magnus opus of Humanity’s cultural heritage”, and because of this, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) exhibits a series of data about the mortality of the country.
In 2015, more than 655 thousand deaths were reported. The main causes were: cardiovascular diseases (25.5%), endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases (17.5%), and malignant tumors (13%). What data there is on previous years?
In 1950, the population lived 49.7 years, on average; more than a third of the population (34.6%) died of parasitic and infectious diseases. In 2015, the more than 655 thousand reported deaths, the 2.5% of them was associated to those causes. Additionally, life expectancy increased to 75.3 by 2017.
Also, a list of diseases was showed that can provide a better epidemiological view on why populations die. Considering this information, the main seven causes of death are linked to diabetes mellitus (15%), ischemic heart diseases (13.4%), live diseases (5.4%), cerebrovascular diseases (5.2%), chronic lower respiratory diseases (4%), hypertensive (3.5%), and aggressions (3.2%). In conjunction, these diseases make up to almost half (49.7%) of total deaths.
The advancements also showed the child mortality rate. Between 1990 and 2015, the rate decreased from 32.5 to 12.5 on children less than a year old by every thousand born alive. In 2015, 34,060 youngsters from 15 to 29 years old died, representing a 5.2% of total deaths. In men, aggressions (25.4%), transportation accidents (17.8%), and intentional self-inflicted injuries (7.9%), are the main causes of death. Women of that age die mainly because of transportation accidents (10.7%), followed by aggressions (10.3%), and intentional self-inflicted injuries (7.4%).
A study exhibited an innovative approach to track life expectancy, mortality by any cause, and cause of death prediction, as well as future alternative scenarios for 250 death causes from 2016 to 2040 in 195 countries and territories. The model was used to generate mortality by age and sex, life expectancy, and lost life years. A framework of models was developed that produced mortality estimations of any cause and specific causes. 79 covariates were used as independent impellers. For the risk factors and interventions, the causality evidence of the cohort studies and random essays produced consistent results.
Health predictions, known as reference scenarios, lead to guideline the more probable future health tendencies. The performance or precision of the prediction can be evaluated empirically through retaining recent period data and the comparison of predictions generated without this data.
However, even predictions based on model with good performance cannot anticipate all future impellers of health change. For instance, a model of the 1970’s would not have predicted the epidemic of HIV or the cure for hepatitis C. Health predictions are based solely on what we know of the past and the present. Said prognoses can and must be complemented with alternative scenarios that analyze all plausible futures.
Some specific predictions in every country show an alarming potential to an obesity increase and the following decrease of life expectancy, because of a higher morbidity and mortality linked to diabetes. It is anticipated that global life expectancy raises in 4.4 years (95% UI 2.2 to 6.4) for men and 4.4 (2.1 to 6.4) in women by 2040. In 2040, Japan, Singapore, Spain, and Swiss had a life expectancy higher than 85 years for both sexes and it was anticipated that 59 countries, including China, would surpass the life expectancy of 80 years of by 2040.
The predictions of lost life years, showed an increase in number of non-transmissible diseases, partly bolstered by growth and the aging of the population. In most countries, the medical attention susceptible metabolic risks and the risks better managed by intervention to local or intersectional levels had some of the biggest differences between reference scenarios and better health scenarios.
According to this reference prediction, it was predicted that health results will improve by 2040; however, as shown in the best and worse health scenarios in 2040, there is a wide margin for substantial progress and a overturn of health benefits.
Reviewers: Brenda Giselle Alvarez Rodriguez (Public Health Research Unit), and Cassandra Saldaña Pineda (Knowledge Management Unit).
Sources:
- Article: “Forecasting life expectancy, years of life lost, and all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 250 causes of death: reference and alternative scenarios for 2016-40 for 195 countries and territories”. 2018. Global Health Metrics
- INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography)