Citation

Parks RM, Bennett JE, Foreman KJ, Toumi R, Ezzati M. Elife 2018; 7: e35500.

Affiliation

WHO Collaborating Centre on NCD Surveillance and Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, dLife Sciences Plublications, Ltd)

DOI

10.7554/eLife.35500

PMID

30373715

Abstract

In temperate climates, winter deaths exceed summer ones. However, there is limited information on the timing and the relative magnitudes of maximum and minimum mortality, by local climate, age group, sex and medical cause of death. We used geo-coded mortality data and wavelets to analyse the seasonality of mortality by age group and sex from 1980 to 2016 in the USA and its subnational climatic regions. Death rates in men and women ≥ 45 years peaked in December to February and were lowest in June to August, driven by cardiorespiratory diseases and injuries. In these ages, percent difference in death rates between peak and minimum months did not vary across climate regions, nor changed from 1980 to 2016. Under five years, seasonality of all-cause mortality largely disappeared after the 1990s. In adolescents and young adults, especially in males, death rates peaked in June/July and were lowest in December/January, driven by injury deaths.

© 2018, Parks et al.

Language: en

Keywords

cause of death; climate change; epidemiology; global health; mortality; none; seasonal dynamics; seasonality; wavelet analysis