Pharmacy Daily | Chronic disease and death

MORTALITY rates from multiple chronic conditions in Australia are underestimated according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). The comments come in the wake of a report by the AIHW, Multiple causes of death: an analysis of all natural and selected chronic disease causes of death 1997-2007, which for the first time used multiple causes of death statistics (instead of the traditional analysis method which focused on one underlaying cause of death) to describe patterns of chronic disease mortality in Australia. “Some chronic diseases are more likely to be reported as an associated cause of death, rather than the main cause of death,” said AIHW spokesperson Ann Hunt. “Traditional analysis ignores associated causes of death, and so underestimates the contribution of diseases such as chronic kidney failure, diabetes, asthma, dementia and Alzheimer diseases and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to deaths in Australia,” Hunt added. According to the report, an average of three diseases contributed to each death due to natural causes in Australia in 2007, and only 20% of these deaths were due to a single disease. Interestingly the report also showed a doubling in the number of deaths where there were five or more causes from 11% in 1997 to 21% in 2007. Researchers also found that the group with the highest average number of contributing diseases causing death were aged between 60 and 89, whilst for deaths involving chronic diseases, coronary heart disease, hypertensive diseases and diabetes were leading contributing causes. “CHD contributed to nearly half of deaths involving diabetes, and more than one third involving chronic and unspecified kidney failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma,” said Hunt. “One quarter of deaths involving dementia or Alzheimer disease also involved influenza or pneumonia,” she added. MEANWHILE Hunt also said that studying multiple cause data enables researchers to garner a more complete picture of all diseases contributing to death. This in turn can support targeted prevention, treatment and service planning, as well as to inform surveillance, guide research investments and enhance health measures such as estimates of burden of disease.

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