Jamil Hasan, Nomura Shuhei, Gilmour Stuart
Graduate School of Public Health, St. Luke's International University, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan.
Division of Population Data Science, National Cancer Center Institute for Cancer Control, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2025 Jan 8;22(1):74. doi: 10.3390/ijerph22010074.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare systems globally, potentially altering mortality trends for non-COVID-19 diseases, particularly in aging populations like Japan's. Assessing these impacts is essential for responsive healthcare planning. We analyzed Japanese vital registration mortality records from January 2018 to December 2021 for adults aged 25 and older, excluding COVID-19-related deaths. Data were stratified by sex and ICD-10 cause-of-death chapters. Poisson regression models assessed changes in mortality rates and trends, incorporating pandemic-related variables and interactions between time, age group, and the pandemic term. Among the 4,920,942 deaths analyzed, 2,456,750 occurred during the pandemic years. Significant sex-specific changes in mortality trends were observed. Women experienced increases in mortality rates and trends for endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases; skin and subcutaneous tissue diseases; circulatory diseases; and genitourinary diseases, reversing some pre-pandemic declines. Men showed increases in mortality trends for endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases and genitourinary diseases but no significant changes for skin or circulatory diseases. These findings indicate that the pandemic differentially affected mortality trends between sexes, with women experiencing broader increases across multiple disease categories. The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with significant changes in mortality trends for certain non-COVID-19 diseases in Japan, with notable sex differences. Increased mortality among women across multiple disease categories highlights the pandemic's indirect health impacts and underscores the need for sex-specific healthcare strategies in the post-pandemic era.
新冠疫情扰乱了全球医疗系统,可能改变了非新冠疾病的死亡率趋势,尤其是在日本这样的老龄化人口中。评估这些影响对于制定适应性医疗规划至关重要。我们分析了2018年1月至2021年12月日本25岁及以上成年人的生命登记死亡记录,排除了与新冠相关的死亡病例。数据按性别和国际疾病分类第十版(ICD - 10)死因章节进行分层。泊松回归模型评估了死亡率和趋势的变化,纳入了与疫情相关的变量以及时间、年龄组和疫情时期之间的相互作用。在分析的4920942例死亡病例中,有2456750例发生在疫情期间。观察到死亡率趋势存在显著的性别差异。女性在内分泌、营养和代谢疾病;皮肤和皮下组织疾病;循环系统疾病;以及泌尿生殖系统疾病的死亡率和趋势有所上升,扭转了疫情前的一些下降趋势。男性在内分泌、营养和代谢疾病以及泌尿生殖系统疾病的死亡率趋势有所上升,但皮肤或循环系统疾病没有显著变化。这些发现表明,疫情对两性的死亡率趋势产生了不同影响,女性在多个疾病类别中出现了更广泛的上升。在日本,新冠疫情与某些非新冠疾病的死亡率趋势的显著变化相关,存在明显的性别差异。女性在多个疾病类别中死亡率上升凸显了疫情的间接健康影响,并强调了在疫情后时代制定针对性别医疗策略的必要性。