Citation

Narh-Bana SA, Chirwa TF, Mwanyangala MA, Nathan R. Trop. Med. Int. Health 2012; 17(11): 1396-1404.

Affiliation

 Dodowa Health Research Centre, Accra Region, Ghana  Dangme West District Health Administration, Ghana Health Service, Dodowa, Ghana  Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa  Ifakara Health Institute, Dar es salaam, Tanzania.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1365-3156.2012.03080.x

PMID

22974416

Abstract

Objectives  To determine patterns and risk factors for cause-specific adult mortality in rural southern Tanzania. Methods  The study was a longitudinal open cohort and focused on adults aged 15-59 years between 2003 and 2007. Causes of deaths were ascertained by verbal autopsy (VA). Cox proportion hazards regression model was used to determine factors associated with cause-specific mortality over the 5-year period. Results  Thousand three hundred and fifty-two of 65 548 adults died, representing a crude adult mortality rate (AMR) of 7.3 per 1000 person years of observation (PYO). VA was performed for 1132 (84%) deaths. HIV/AIDS [231 (20.4%)] was the leading cause of death followed by malaria [150 (13.2%)]. AMR for communicable disease (CD) causes was 2.49 per 1000 PYO, 1.21 per 1000 PYO for non-communicable diseases (NCD) and 0.53 per 1000 PYO for accidents/injury causes. NCD deaths increased from 16% in 2003 to 24% in 2007. High level of education was associated with a reduction in the risk of dying from NCDs. Those with primary education (HR = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.49, 0.92) and with education beyond primary school (HR = 0.11, 95% CI: 0.02, 0.40) had lower mortality than those who had no formal education. Compared with local residents, in-migrants were 1.7 (95% CI: 1.37, 2.11) times more likely to die from communicable disease causes. Conclusion  NCDs are increasing as a result of demographic and epidemiological transitions taking place in most African countries including Tanzania and require attention to prevent increased triple disease burden of CD, NCD and accident/injuries.

Language: en