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New Article in “European Journal of Public Health” • 28.07.2023Sex Differences in Mortality across European Regions
A new paper has been published by Markus Sauerberg, Sebastian Klüsener, Michael Mühlichen and Pavel Grigoriev from our REDIM team in the “European Journal of Public Health”, analysing the differences between men and women in cause-specific mortality across 228 regions in seven Europan countries and their devlopment over time from 1996 to 2019.
Male excess mortality is mostly related to non-biological factors, and is thus of high social- and health-policy concern. Previous research has mainly focused on national patterns, while subnational disparities have been less in the focus. This study takes a spatial perspective on subnational patterns, covering seven European countries at the crossroad between Eastern and Western Europe.
The authors analysed a spatially detailed data resource gathered over the course of the REDIM project comprising 228 regions with well-established demographic methods to assess the contribution of specific causes of death to the evolution of sex mortality differentials (SMDs) since the mid-1990s.
The results show that declines in SMDs were mostly driven by a reduction of male excess mortality from cardiovascular diseases and neoplasms (about 50–60% and 20–30%, respectively). In Western Europe, trends in deaths from neoplasms contributed more to the reduction of SMDs, while among regions located in Eastern-Central Europe narrowing SMDs were mostly driven by changes in cardiovascular disease-related deaths. Moreover, men show up to three times higher mortality levels from external causes as compared to women in several analysed regions. But in absolute terms, external deaths play only a minor role in explaining SMDs due to their small contribution to overall mortality.
The authors conclude that examining the regional development of SMDs is useful for introducing targeted social and health policies in order to reduce and prevent mortality inequalities between women and men.
Sauerberg, Markus; Klüsener, Sebastian; Mühlichen, Michael; Grigoriev, Pavel (2023): Sex differences in cause-specific mortality: regional trends in seven European countries, 1996–2019. European Journal of Public Health (online first).