Tag: CDC

5 Worst States for Working-Age Death Increases in July

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/09/12/5-worst-states-for-working-age-death-increases-in-july/

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Early government mortality numbers show that the number of U.S. deaths has stayed very high this summer, both for members of the general population and for working-age people.

For all U.S. residents, for the period from July 3 through Aug. 27, the number of deaths recorded in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s FluView reports was 426,881, according to the report released Friday, which included data sent to the CDC by Sept. 3.

The “all cause” total for the general population was down just 0.8% from the total for the comparable period in 2021, and it was 22% higher than the total for the comparable period in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

For U.S. residents ages 25 through 64, the all-cause death total during that same period was 113,665, according to early, weighted data in the CDC’s Weekly Counts of Deaths by Jurisdiction and Age reports, as of Sept. 8.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 12 Sept 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Two Key Takeaways From The New CDC Life Expectancy Data

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2022/09/02/two-key-takeaways-from-the-new-cdc-life-expectancy-data/?sh=6ce149f31cfc

Excerpt:

To what extent, are these drops of life expectancy due to Covid-19, rather than other causes?

From 2019 to 2020, the CDC reports that 90% of the drop in Hispanic life expectancy was attributable to Covid; the corresponding rates were 68% for whites and 59% for blacks. (No breakdown was provided for the AIAN or Asian categories.) However, the CDC data splits its breakdowns into “contributions to decreases” and “contributions to increases” rather than overall net effect. Those readers who are used to looking at data and charts will expect a “waterfall” style chart; the CDC version is not this, and is not particularly helpful.

In any event, relative to the 2020 baseline, the further decreases in life expectancy during 2021 had multiple causes. Only among the White demographic group was Covid the cause of over half of the decline; unintentional injury (including overdoses) was the second-largest contributing factor and for the AIAN demographic group, worsening rates of death due to chronic liver disease and cirrhosis played almost as substantial a role.

And, finally, it is important to understand that the CDC data shows a continued improvement in life expectancy due to reductions in death due to such causes as influenza/pneumonia, COPD/emphysema, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, and perinatal conditions (infant deaths). In fact, strikingly, in 2021, heart disease was a contributor to increased life expectancy in the Black, Hispanic, and Asian demographic groups, but a contributor to decreased life expectancy for the White and AIAN groups.

Again, though, the way the CDC provides its information means that, when it comes down to it, there is much that is simply missing; we do not know the magnitude of the improvements in life expectancy due to these causes, just that it exists. It even seems likely, or at least possible, that some of the apparent improvement in mortality due to these factors was actually because deaths were actually recorded as Covid deaths instead (whether due to multiple causes of death or other reasons).

Author(s): Elizabeth Bauer

Publication Date: 2 Sept 2022

Publication Site: Forbes

Racial Disparities in Maternal Health

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.usccr.gov/files/2021/09-15-Racial-Disparities-in-Maternal-Health.pdf

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Over the past two decades, the U.S. maternal mortality rate has not improved while maternal
mortality rates have decreased for other regions of the world. Furthermore, the rate at which
women in the U.S. experience short-term or long-term negative health consequences due to
unexpected outcomes of pregnancy or childbirth has also steadily increased over the past few
decades, with nearly 50,000 women in the U.S. experiencing these health consequences in 2014.
Significant racial and ethnic disparities persist in both the rate of women in the U.S. who die due
to complications of pregnancy or delivery and the rate that women experience negative health
consequences due to unexpected pregnancy or childbirth outcomes.

…..

Compared to any other racial or ethnic group,7 Black8 women experience the highest rates of
nearly all of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) severe maternal morbidity9
indicators.10 Black women in the U.S. are 3 to 4 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related
complications than White11 women in the U.S., and Native American12 women are more than 2
times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than White women in the U.S.13
Pregnancy-related mortality is also slightly elevated for Asian women (a 1.1 disparity ratio),14
and for Hispanic women in some geographic areas.15 Moreover, the risk of pregnancy-related
death is so elevated for Black women in certain regions of the U.S. that it is comparable to the

rate of pregnancy-related deaths16 in some developing countries.17 This racial disparity has not
improved in decades,18 and is also seen in other middle to high-income countries with
multiethnic populations.19 According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S.
maternal mortality ratio ranked 56th in the world in 2017.20 According to the National Center for
Health Statistics (NCHS), in 2018, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. was 17.4 maternal
deaths per 100,000 live births, with 658 women dying of maternal causes.21 In 2019, the
maternal mortality rate in the U.S. was 20.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, with 754
women dying of maternal causes.

Author(s): U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Publication Date: September 2021

Publication Site: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Dissenting Statement and Rebuttal of Commissioner Gail L. Heriot in U.S. Commission on Civil Right Report: Racial Disparities on Maternal Health

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3924645

Full Citation:

Heriot, Gail L., Dissenting Statement and Rebuttal of Commissioner Gail L. Heriot in U.S. Commission on Civil Right Report: Racial Disparities on Maternal Health (September 15, 2021). San Diego Legal Studies Paper 21-028, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3924645 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3924645

Abstract:

On September 15, 2021, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a report entitled Racial Disparities in Maternal Health (the “Report”). This Dissenting Statement and Rebuttal (the “Statement”) is a part of that report.

Among other things, the Statement points out several errors in Report. For example, the Report incorrectly states that maternal mortality has increased 50% over the last generation. What has actually happened is that changes in death certificates have caused more deaths to be classified as maternal in nature. The Report also emphasizes the theory that racism plays a prominent role in causing racial disparities in maternal mortality. The Statement points out in response that maternal mortality rates for Hispanic and Asian American mothers are lower than the rate for white mothers. This tends to detract from the theory that racism is what’s causing the disparities.

Author(s): Gail L. Heriot

Publication Date: 13 Oct 2021

Publication Site: SSRN

A Louisiana senator defends his statements on the state’s Black maternal health

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/cassidy-defends-statements-louisianas-black-maternal-health-statistics-rcna30166

Excerpt:

Black pregnant women continue to face disproportionately high pregnancy-related deaths, with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicating a 26 percent increase in the maternal mortality rate for Black women since the start of the pandemic. 

Though researchers do not have an explanation for the disparities, the research suggests it’s a culmination of institutional racism and other health factors, such as the increased risk of obesity and hypertension in Black women. Howell also added that stress and a lack of access to quality prenatal care further exacerbates this issue. 

“It really does boil down to how public health officials relate to Black women who are giving birth,” Howell said. “Statistics about Black maternal mortality are high across the board, no matter what your educational level is, no matter what your insurance level is.” 

In 2018, tennis star Serena Williams opened up in an interview with Vogue magazine about encountering severe health complications after giving birth because doctors neglected to listen about her existing medical conditions.

“When you have someone like Serena Williams having problems giving birth, and not being treated properly by nurses and doctors when she complains about not feeling well, then you look at the doctor of someone who is poor in Louisiana, and has the same kind of problem — they are probably treated even worse,” Howell said.

Author(s): Tat Bellamy-Walker

Publication Date: 23 May 2022

Publication Site: NBC News

Fact Check: Covid as a Leading Cause of Death in Children

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.covid-georgia.com/pediatric-news/fact-check-covid-is-a-leading-cause-of-death-in-children/

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In the CDC ACIP meeting on June 17 to discuss childhood Covid vaccines, a table was presented showing Covid was a leading cause of death in US children as part of a slide deck on the epidemiology of Covid-19 in children and adolescents by Dr. Katherine Fleming-Dutra. The source was a pre-print written by a group of academics from the UK, including Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, who is well-known on Twitter for her strong views on Covid. I later learned that a very similar slide was also presented at the beginning of the FDA VRBPAC meeting earlier in the week.

The slide was shared on Twitter by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina (“Your Local Epidemiologist”), and retweeted by many influential people including Jerome Adams, Julia Raifman (tweet now deleted), Gregg Gonsalves, and Leana Wen. Only problem? It’s completely and utterly false. The pre-print it’s based on includes significant errors that invalidate the results. And the slide makes additional errors on top of the pre-print. It’s really disturbing that data this poor made its way into the meetings to discuss childhood Covid, and that it took me less that a few minutes to find a major flaw (and then I found many more as I looked deeper). I contacted the study’s corresponding author, Dr. Seth Flaxman, who originally said he’d get back to me on Monday, but responded early Sunday morning to get more information about the source of the Underlying Cause of Death data I used for Covid (the CDC WONDER database, Provisional Mortality Statistics, 2018-present). He later posted on Twitter to say than an updated pre-print would be available soon.

….

The second major issue with the pre-print are the time periods for the deaths. The underlying cause of death data is for a single year – 2019 (more on that later). However, the rankings of Covid deaths by age group in the pre-print include both cumulative (over 26 months) AND annualized deaths for some strange reason. That means Covid is inexplicably ranked twice for each age group.

Below is the table ranking leading causes of death for 15-19 year olds. Notice that Covid is listed both as the 4th AND the 6th leading cause of death. This is non-sensical and extremely misleading. It is completely inappropriate to compare the cumulative number of Covid deaths over 26 months to deaths from other causes over a one year period. The only way to make a fair comparison is to use an annualized number. There’s no good reason the cumulative number of Covid deaths over 26 months should be included on this list at all.

Author(s): Kelley in Georgia

Publication Date: accessed 22 Jun 2022

Publication Site: COVID-19 in Georgia

Essential Terms of the Authority Crisis

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://polimath.substack.com/p/essential-terms-of-the-authority

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This last week, the CDC held their ACIP meeting to discuss whether or not they should recommend the COVID vaccines for children 6 months to 5 years old. While presenting on the danger of the virus for children, a slide was shown claiming that COVID presented as one of the leading causes of death for children.

Kelley, who runs covid-georgia.com, saw this slide and immediately knew it was false. She has been tracking COVID data in excruciating detail in Georgia since the beginning of the pandemic and has recently become an expert on the CDC’s pediatric death data simply because it was such a disaster and she wanted to get down to the truth of the matter.

This slide above is no small error. Not only did it count the wrong number for pediatric COVID deaths, it compared all pediatric COVID deaths in a 26-month period to annualized deaths from other causes. This is a massive data error, and yet it persisted through a supposedly rigorous data check from 11 authors and was selected by top-tier scientists for their landmark presentation to the most knowledgeable experts in the field.

Author(s): Matt Shapiro

Publication Date: 21 Jun 2022

Publication Site: Marginally Compelling at substack

U.S. Births Increase for First Time Since 2014

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-births-increase-for-first-time-since-2014-11653364861

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U.S. births increased last year for the first time in seven years, according to federal figures out on Tuesday that offer the latest indication the pandemic baby bust was smaller than expected.

American women had about 3.66 million babies in 2021, up 1% from the prior year, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. It was the first increase since 2014. The rebound spanned age groups, with birthrates rising for every cohort of women age 25 and older.

Births still remain at historically low levels after peaking in 2007 and then plummeting during the recession that began at the end of that year. The total fertility rate — a snapshot of the average number of babies a woman would have over her lifetime — was 1.66 last year, up from 1.64 the prior year, when it fell to the lowest level since the government began tracking it in the 1930s.

Author(s): Janet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros

Publication Date: 24 May 2022

Publication Site: WSJ

Births: Provisional Data for 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr020.pdf

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Methods—Data are based on 99.94% of all 2021 birth records received and processed by the National Center for Health Statistics as of February 10, 2022. Comparisons are made with final 2020 data and earlier years.

Results—The provisional number of births for the United States in 2021 was 3,659,289, up 1% from 2020 and the first increase in the number of births since 2014. The general fertility rate was 56.6 births per 1,000 women aged 15–44, up 1% from 2020 and the first increase in the rate since 2014. The total fertility
rate was 1,663.5 births per 1,000 women in 2021, up 1% from 2020. Birth rates declined for women in age groups 15–24, rose for women in age groups 25–49, and was unchanged for adolescents aged 10–14 in 2021. The birth rate for teenagers aged 15–19 declined by 6% in 2021 to 14.4 births per 1,000 females;
rates declined for both younger (aged 15–17) and older (aged 18–19) teenagers. The cesarean delivery rate rose to 32.1% in 2021; the low-risk cesarean delivery rate also rose to 26.3%. The preterm birth rate rose 4% in 2021 to 10.48%, the highest rate reported since 2007.

Author(s): Brady E. Hamilton, Ph.D., Joyce A. Martin, M.P.H., and Michelle J.K. Osterman, M.H.S.,
Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics

Publication Date: May 2022

Publication Site: CDC

Firearm Mortality by State

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

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1 The number of deaths per 100,000 total population.

Source: https://wonder.cdc.gov

States are categorized from highest rate to lowest rate. Although adjusted for differences in age-distribution and population size, rankings by state do not take into account other state specific population characteristics that may affect the level of mortality. When the number of deaths is small, rankings by state may be unreliable due to instability in death rates.

Publication Date: accessed 31 May 2022

Publication Site: CDC

Drug-Overdose Deaths Reached a Record in 2021, Fueled by Fentanyl

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-overdose-deaths-reached-a-record-in-2021-fueled-by-fentanyl-11652277600

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Drug-overdose deaths in 2021 topped 100,000 for the first time in a calendar year, federal data showed, a record high fueled by the spread of illicit forms of fentanyl throughout the country.

More than 107,000 people in the U.S. died from drug overdoses last year, preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday showed, roughly a 15% increase from 2020. The proliferation of the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl has been compounded by the destabilizing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on users and people in recovery, according to health authorities and treatment providers.

The U.S. has recorded more than one million overdose deaths since 2000, and more than half of those came in the past seven years.

….

The agency has counted about 103,600 overdoses for 2021 but believes the number is several thousand higher due to suspected overdoses that haven’t yet been confirmed by local death investigators, Dr. Anderson said.

Author(s): Jon Kamp

Publication Date: 11 May 2022

Publication Site: WSJ

Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm

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Despite the dramatic decline in infant and maternal mortality during the 20th century, challenges remain. Perhaps the greatest is the persistent difference in maternal and infant health among various racial/ethnic groups, particularly between black and white women and infants. Although overall rates have plummeted, black infants are more than twice as likely to die as white infants; this ratio has increased in recent decades. The higher risk for infant mortality among blacks compared with whites is attributed to higher LBW incidence and preterm births and to a higher risk for death among normal birthweight infants (greater than or equal to 5 lbs, 8 oz [greater than or equal to 2500 g]) (18). American Indian/ Alaska Native infants have higher death rates than white infants because of higher SIDS rates. Hispanics of Puerto Rican origin have higher death rates than white infants because of higher LBW rates (19). The gap in maternal mortality between black and white women has increased since the early 1900s. During the first decades of the 20th century, black women were twice as likely to die of pregnancy-related complications as white women. Today, black women are more than three times as likely to die as white women.

During the last few decades, the key reason for the decline in neonatal mortality has been the improved rates of survival among LBW babies, not the reduction in the incidence of LBW. The long-term effects of LBW include neurologic disorders, learning disabilities, and delayed development (20). During the 1990s, the increased use of assisted reproductive technology has led to an increase in multiple gestations and a concomitant increase in the preterm delivery and LBW rates (21). Therefore, in the coming decades, public health programs will need to address the two leading causes of infant mortality: deaths related to LBW and preterm births and congenital anomalies. Additional substantial decline in neonatal mortality will require effective strategies to reduce LBW and preterm births. This will be especially important in reducing racial/ethnic disparities in the health of infants.

Approximately half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, including approximately three quarters among women aged less than 20 years. Unintended pregnancy is associated with increased morbidity and mortality for the mother and infant. Lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking, drinking alcohol, unsafe sex practices, and poor nutrition) and inadequate intake of foods containing folic acid pose serious health hazards to the mother and fetus and are more common among women with unintended pregnancies. In addition, one fifth of all pregnant women and approximately half of women with unintended pregnancies do not start prenatal care during the first trimester. Effective strategies to reduce unintended pregnancy, to eliminate exposure to unhealthy lifestyle factors, and to ensure that all women begin prenatal care early are important challenges for the next century.

Author(s): Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.

Publication Date: 1 October 1999

Publication Site: CDC MMWR