More men than women under the age of 44 die prematurely in all the 44 countries a new study looked at. And in many cases the causes of the early deaths are avoidable.
The main causes of death in this age group are associated with lifestyle and risk taking, say the researchers, who used data from a World Health Organization mortality database to investigate patterns of mortality in men and women aged between 15 and 44 years in 44 countries around the world (Journal of Men’s Health and Gender 2006;3:139-51).
“In every country there is an excess of male deaths due to potentially avoidable reasons,” write the authors, from Leeds Metropolitan University. “The nature of the risks that men face can be interpreted in many ways, from the physical risk associated with road traffic accidents to the personal lifestyle risk associated with smoking, poor diet and alcohol consumption.
“Policy makers and health practitioners should already start to use the available data to develop better-targeted healthcare services for young men.”
The study shows that although mortality is higher among men in all the 44 countries, the numbers of deaths and the causes vary widely.
The study, which focused on six potentially avoidable causes of death—accidents, suicide, malignant neoplasms, diseases of the circulatory system, homicide, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis—shows that among men a median of 7.4% of all deaths from all causes in all age groups were in 15-44 year olds, whereas the corresponding figure for women was 3.1%. Men were more likely than women to die in accidents: among 25-34 year olds the median number of deaths from accidents was 42 per 100 000 people among men and nine per 100 000 among women.
Substantial differences were also found in the number of deaths from suicide. In the 25-34 age group, for instance, the median number among men was 21.9 per 100 000 people, while that among women was 4.6. In the same age group numbers of deaths from cardiovascular disease were 11.2 per 100 000 among men and 4.6 per 100 000 among women.
The results show that across all the age groups mortality was higher among men than among women and that there were marked geographical differences. In Estonia and Latvia in the 15-24 and 25-34 years age groups the death rate among men was more than 4.5 times that among women. In Egypt, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong, however, male mortality was just under double female mortality in the same age groups.
Among men the proportion of all deaths that were premature varied widely across countries. In Thailand 35% of all deaths among men were in the 15-44 years age group, whereas the percentage was 3.5% in Sweden and 4.9% in the United Kingdom.
In the eight countries where accidents were not the most frequently reported cause of death among those aged under 44, the main causes were malignant neoplasms (Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Singapore), cardiovascular diseases (Egypt and the Philippines), homicide (Brazil), suicide (Japan), and mental disorders (Norway).
