Artikel
Seasonal patterns of cardiovascular deaths in a rural area of Burkina Faso, West Africa
Suche in Medline nach
Autoren
-
Gisela Kynast-Wolf
- Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
-
Ali Sié
- Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna, Nouna, Burkina Faso
-
Bocar Kouyaté
- Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna, Nouna, Burkina Faso
-
Heiko Becher
- Universität Heidelberg, Nouna, Burkina Faso
| Veröffentlicht: | 6. September 2007 |
|---|
Gliederung
Text
Introduction: Studies suggest that there is a seasonal variation in the cardiovascular deaths (CVD), but little is known for countries with on average hot climate. Previous analyses in Africa showed that overall mortality differs by season also in adults. In this ages, it is less likely related to malaria [Ref. 1], [Ref. 2]. Here, we evaluated seasonal patterns of cardiovascular mortality.
Material and methods: Longitudinal data from about 62.000 individuals were analysed for the period 1999 to 2003. Cause of death was ascertained by verbal autopsy, a common method to obtain the likely cause of death. Age-specific death rates by month of death were calculated (per 100,000). Seasonal trends were modeled with parametric Poisson regression.
Results: 1238 deaths in adults were recorded. All-cause mortality in adults (40-64 years) and old-aged people (65+ years) was 1269 (95% Confidence Interval 1156-1382) and 7074 (95% CI 6569-7579), respectively. CVD was the fifth most frequent cause of death with 100 observed deaths in adults (40+) with a mortality of 109.9 (95% CI 76.6-143.1) for ages 40-64 and 544.9 (95% CI 404.6-685.1) for age 65+. For all causes the mortality was highest in March (p<0.0001), shortly after the cooler dry season (November-February), and for CVD highest in April (p=0.16), the hot dry season (March-May). Analysing old-aged people separately a strong pattern for CVD was found with highest risk at the beginning of May (p=0.058).
Conclusions: We observed seasonal variations in the occurrence of cardiovascular mortality with higher mortality rates in the hot dry season. Due to limitations in the verbal autopsy method [Ref. 3], the pattern seems to be consistent with other studies suggesting association between hot weather and cardiovascular disease [Ref. 4]. Non-communicable diseases are already major public health challenges and the probability of dying of that cause is higher in Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries than in established market economies [Ref. 5].
References
- 1.
- Kynast-Wolf G, Hammer GP, Muller O, Kouyate B, Becher H. Season of death and birth predict patterns of mortality in Burkina Faso. Int J Epidemiol. 2006;35(2):427-35.
- 2.
- Becher H, Kynast-Wolf G, Sié A, Ndugwa R, Ramroth H, Kouyaté B, Müller O. Patterns of malaria, cause-specific and all cause mortality in a malaria endemic area of West Africa. 2007 (submitted).
- 3.
- Mobley CC, Boerma JT, Titus S, Lohrke B, Shangula K, Black RE. Validation study of a verbal autopsy method for causes of childhood mortality in Namibia. J Trop Pediatr. 1996;42(6):365-9.
- 4.
- Mastrangelo G, Hajat S, Fadda E, Buja A, Fedeli U, Spolaore P. Contrasting patterns of hospital admissions and mortality during heat waves: are deaths from circulatory disease a real excess or an artifact? Med Hypotheses. 2006;66:1025-8.
- 5.
- Murray CJ, Lopez AD. Mortality by cause for eight regions of the world: Global Burden of Disease Study. Lancet. 1997;349(9061):1269-76.
