Weeks of life lost to COVID-19, the case of the United States.
Immun Inflamm Dis
; 10(7): e661, 2022 07.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35759232
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Years of life lost (YLL) is a preferable indicator to assess the mortality impact of COVID-19. This indicator still has limits, however. Therefore, a new approach and its early-death weeks (eDW) index has been recently proposed to alter YLL. This study aims to add a new approach, the moving excess-deficit mortality model, and its method, the weeks of life lost (WLL) index. The new method was then used to measure WLL associated with COVID-19 in the United States (US).METHODS:
The natural mortality law and the random pattern of spreading COVID-19 were employed to support calculating WLL. The natural mortality law implied that under the same living conditions and the weaker would die earlier. The random spreading of COVID-19 assumed that COVID-19 causes the weekly number of early deaths in equal proportions from all of those who would have died eventually distributed through the pandemic.RESULTS:
From Week 02 of 2020 to Week 44 of 2021, we found that the US population has lost 56,270,300 weeks to COVID-19; the average WLL per COVID-19-related death is 74 or 1.4 in the unit of years.CONCLUSIONS:
The results do not depend on the high heterogeneity of deaths (e.g., age, gender, health status) and on whether COVID-19 is the main cause of death. The moving excess-deficit mortality model and WLL index can be applied promptly at any time and anywhere once excess deaths occurred during the pandemic. The index also provides critical insights into COVID-19, which can support making public health policies and decisions.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
COVID-19
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Humans
País/Região como assunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2022
Tipo de documento:
Article