van der Sande, MA; Inskip, HM; Jaiteh, KO; Maine, NP; Walraven, GE; Hall, AJ; McAdam, KP; (2001) Changing causes of death in the West African town of Banjul, 1942-97. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 79 (2). pp. 133-141. ISSN 0042-9686 https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/15752
Permanent Identifier
Use this permanent URL when citing or linking to this resource.
https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/15752
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine trends in the causes of death in a West African town. Mortality caused by infectious diseases is reported to be declining while degenerative and man-made mortality factors are increasingly significant. Most mortality analyses for sub-Saharan Africa have involved extrapolation and have not been derived from community-based data. METHODS: Historical data on causes of death coded by physicians were analysed for the urban population of Banjul for the period 1942-97. As the calculation of rates is not possible in the absence of a reliable population denominator, age-standardized proportional mortality ratios (PMRs) for men and women by major groups of causes of death were calculated, using the 1942-49 data for reference purposes. FINDINGS: Most deaths were attributable to communicable diseases. There was a shift in proportional mortality over the study period: the contribution of communicable diseases declined and that of noncommunicable diseases and injuries increased. These trends were more marked among men than women. CONCLUSION: The data illustrate that while noncommunicable diseases and injuries are emerging as important contributors to mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, communicable diseases remain significant causes of mortality and should not be neglected.
Item Type | Article |
---|---|
Keywords | Adult, *Cause of Death, Chi-Square Distribution, Child, Communicable Diseases/epidemiology, Female, Gambia/epidemiology, Human, Male, Poisson Distribution, Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Urban Population, Adult, Cause of Death, Chi-Square Distribution, Child, Communicable Diseases, epidemiology, Female, Gambia, epidemiology, Human, Male, Poisson Distribution, Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Urban Population |
Faculty and Department |
Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases > Dept of Clinical Research Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health > Dept of Infectious Disease Epidemiology |
PubMed ID | 11242820 |
Related URLs |
Download
Filename: Changing causes of death in the West African town of Banjul.pdf
Licence: Copyright the publishers
Download