Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, 450 Clarkson Ave, MS 43, Brooklyn, NY, 11203, USA.
College of Business, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
J Public Health Policy. 2021 Dec;42(4):536-549. doi: 10.1057/s41271-021-00309-7. Epub 2021 Nov 3.
All-cause mortality counts allow public health authorities to identify populations experiencing excess deaths from pandemics, natural disasters, and other emergencies. Delays in the completeness of mortality counts may contribute to misinformation because death counts take weeks to become accurate. We estimate the timeliness of all-cause mortality releases during the COVID-19 pandemic for the dates 3 April to 5 September 2020 by estimating the number of weekly data releases of the NCHS Fluview Mortality Surveillance System until mortality comes within 99% of the counts in the 19 March 19 2021 provisional mortality data release. States' mortality counts take 5 weeks at median (interquartile range 4-7 weeks) to completion. The fastest states were Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Utah, Idaho, and Hawaii. States that had not adopted the electronic death registration system (EDRS) were 4.8 weeks slower to achieve complete mortality counts, and each weekly death per 10^8 was associated with a 0.8 week delay. Emergency planning should improve the timeliness of mortality data by improving state vital statistics digital infrastructure.
全因死亡率统计数据使公共卫生当局能够识别出因大流行病、自然灾害和其他紧急情况而导致死亡人数过多的人群。死亡率统计数据的完整性延迟可能会导致错误信息，因为死亡人数需要数周时间才能准确统计。我们通过估算每周 NCHS Fluview 死亡率监测系统的数据发布数量，来估算 2020 年 4 月 3 日至 9 月 5 日期间 COVID-19 大流行期间全因死亡率发布的及时性，直到死亡率与 2021 年 3 月 19 日的临时死亡率数据发布中的计数相差 99%。各州的死亡率统计数据中位数需要 5 周（四分位距为 4-7 周）才能完成。最快的州是缅因州、新罕布什尔州、佛蒙特州、纽约州、犹他州、爱达荷州和夏威夷州。尚未采用电子死亡登记系统（EDRS）的州完成死亡率统计数据的速度要慢 4.8 周，每 10^8 例每周死亡人数与 0.8 周的延迟有关。应急计划应通过改善州生命统计数字基础设施来提高死亡率数据的及时性。
