{"id":5869,"date":"2021-06-11T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nchstats.com\/?p=5869"},"modified":"2021-06-11T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T16:00:00","slug":"podcast-the-2020-increase-in-death-rates-were-the-highest-ever-recorded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/2021\/06\/11\/5869\/","title":{"rendered":"PODCAST: The 2020 Increase in Death Rates Were The Highest Ever Recorded"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATCAST, JUNE 2021: DISCUSSION WITH FARIDA AHMAD, STATISTICIAN, ABOUT LATEST PROVISIONAL QUARTERLY MORTALITY DATA.<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/podcasts\/2021\/20210611\/20210611.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

\"podcast-icon\"HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Each quarter NCHS releases\u00a0provisional data<\/a>\u00a0on mortality from leading causes of death in the U.S. on an interactive web-based dashboard.\u00a0 \u00a0This week the dashboard was updated to include Quarter 4 data from 2020 and gives a complete account of provisional death rates in the U.S. for the year.\u00a0 Joining us to discuss some of the key findings is Farida Ahmad of the Division of Vital Statistics.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0First question: how much did the death rate in the U.S. increase in 2020?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 The death rate for the U.S. increased by about 16% in 2020 compared to 2019-<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Now is it safe to say that almost all of the increase can be attributed to COVID-19.<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 A large part of it, yes, but we also saw increases in other causes of death like heart disease, Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and diabetes.\u00a0 Unintentional injuries like drug overdose also increased throughout 2020.\u00a0 This report only includes drug overdose rates for the first half of the year but you do see very large increases in the second quarter of 2020.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Some say that certain causes of death like influenza and pneumonia declined in 2020 due to COVID \u2013 is that true?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 No, not really \u2013 that\u2019s due to influenza and pneumonia were actually higher in 2020 than in 2019.\u00a0 That\u2019s likely driven by the pneumonia more so than influenza though.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Is there any sense whether some of those pneumonia deaths are miscategorized, that maybe they should be in the COVID category?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes, you know it\u2019s definitely possible.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have hard numbers on that and to account for maybe miscategorized COVID deaths we would we would look at excess mortality.\u00a0 So a different kind of measure to look at that.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 I guess then the same would be true for other causes of death, particularly those that occur at the very beginning of 2020.\u00a0 Is there any chance there will be more COVID deaths added to the tally?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s certainly possible but we haven\u2019t closed out the 2020 data year.\u00a0 So we could still get additional changes but we don\u2019t anticipate a significant number of deaths data will change.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 So the data aren\u2019t final yet is that correct?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Yes that\u2019s correct.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So what are some of the more striking changes you saw in the death rates from 2019 to 2020 as far as certain leading causes go?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 Diabetes deaths increased by almost 14%\u2026 Chronic liver disease increased by 17% \u2026 and then hypertension and Parkinson disease those increased by 12% and 11% respectively.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 So in a normal year those would be considered very large increases is that correct?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes, yeah shifts that large would be notable.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0But there\u2019s no way to sort of link that back to the pandemic, either directly or indirectly?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0Not with the death certificate data that we have, unless these deaths \u2013 you know these deaths which were the underlying cause is what we\u2019re looking at.\u00a0 For these deaths COVID-19 might also be listed on the death certificate, in which case you could say that COVID-19 played a role in that death but otherwise we wouldn\u2019t necessarily know if it was a direct or indirect cause of the pandemic in terms of disrupted access to healthcare or other contributing factors.\u00a0 The death certificate data wouldn\u2019t necessarily tell us that.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0So in general 2020 was a very rough year for mortality but were there any declines in leading causes of death in 2020?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 There were a few \u2013 there were declines in cancer, in chronic lower respiratory diseases, and pneumonitis due to solids and liquids><\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0Did the pandemic \u2013 did COVID-19 \u2014 have any impact on death rates at the state level?\u00a0 Were there any unusual changes in 2020?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0 West Virginia and Mississippi had the highest death rates overall, but the largest increases in death rates were actually seen in New York and New Jersey.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Is there anything else in this new data that you\u2019d like to note?<\/p>\n

FARIDA AHMAD:<\/strong>\u00a0What this report allows us to look at is not just the deaths due to COVID-19, which have been understandably a huge focus of public health surveillance in last year, but with this report we get to look at some of the other leading causes of death that might not be in the top five, or the top ten, but these are issues of public health importance and concern.\u00a0 To look at these various diseases and causes of death, so I think that\u2019s really what this report adds is to be able to take a broader look.<\/p>\n

MUSICAL BRIDGE:<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0Our thanks to Farida Ahmad for joining us on this edition of \u201cStatcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 On Wednesday of this week, NCHS also released a new\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0on screening for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer.\u00a0 The study featured data on women age 45 and over from the National Health Interview Survey, and concluded that regular cancer screening is much more likely among women of higher socio-economic status, as well as women who are married or living with a partner, and women who engage in healthy behaviors \u2014 such as not smoking, regularly exercising, and getting a flu shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STATCAST, JUNE 2021: DISCUSSION WITH FARIDA AHMAD, STATISTICIAN, ABOUT LATEST PROVISIONAL QUARTERLY MORTALITY DATA. https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/podcasts\/2021\/20210611\/20210611.htm HOST:\u00a0 Each quarter NCHS releases\u00a0provisional data\u00a0on mortality from leading causes of death in the U.S. on an interactive web-based dashboard.\u00a0 \u00a0This week the dashboard was updated to include Quarter 4 data from 2020 and gives a complete account of provisional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61966,49481,91,20556,47317,53756,53751],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}