The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has released a report that finds that traditional analysis of causes of death in Australia can lead to constant underestimation of the contribution of some chronic diseases.

 

The Multiple causes of death: an analysis of all natural selected chronic disease causes of death uses multiple causes of death statistics, for the first time, to describe patterns of chronic disease mortality in Australia. Multiple causes of death occur when two or more diseases or conditions are reported as contributing to a death.

 

“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.”

 

On average, 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.

 

“The report also shows an increase in the number of deaths where five or more causes contributed-up from 11% to 21% between 1997 and 2007,” Ms Hunt said.

 

People aged 60-89 years, had the highest average number of diseases causing death, more so than younger people and the very old.

 

For deaths involving some chronic diseases, coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertensive diseases and diabetes were leading contributing causes.