Mortality in elder people. Province of Matanzas 2009-2011

Abstract

A descriptive observational study was carried out to analyze the mortality caused by selected chronic diseases in elder people of the Province of Matanzas during the period 2009-2011. We considered all the deceases that occurred in this group, classifying them according to the 10th Revision of the International Disease Classification. We found out the general mortality index and the mortality index per cause according to sex and age group, the proportional mortality and the potentially lost life years. It was showed that mortality in people elder than 60 years old represents 81.4 % of all the deceases, being the most affected one the group aged 75 years old or more (4.7 %). The average proportional mortality ratio was 1.2 for the male genre; nevertheless, it increases to 1.5 % in ages among 60 and 74 years. The most frequent causes of death were hearth diseases, malignant tumors, cerebral vascular diseases, influenza and pneumonia, and chronic diseases of the low respiratory ways. The male over mortality was present in all the death causes, except in the case of the diabetes mellitus, dementia and Alzheimer disease and accidents. The potentially lost life year rate for the first five causes of death decreased 11.9 %, decreasing more in women (18.3 %). Malignant tumors displaced heart diseases in potentially lost life year rates.
We arrived to the conclusion that mortality behavior in elder people in the province of Matanzas is similar to the behavior in Cuba and other regions of the world, and that it becomes a necessity working at the primary health care level in the control of the non-transmissible chronic diseases and for creating among the population the consciousness of acquiring healthy life styles.