Premature mortality attributable to COVID-19: potential years of life lost in 17 countries around the world, January-August 2020

Maider Pagola Ugarte; Souzana Achilleos; Annalisa Quattrocchi; John Gabel; Ourania Kolokotroni; Constantina Constantinou; Nicoletta Nicolaou; Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Llanes; Qian Huang; Olesia Verstiuk; Nataliia Pidmurniak; Jennifer Wenjing Tao; Bo Burström; Petra Klepac; Ivan Erzen; Mario Chong; Manuel Barron; Terje P Hagen; Zhanna Kalmatayeva; Kairat Davletov; Inbar Zucker; Zalman Kaufman; Maia Kereselidze; Levan Kandelaki; Nolwenn Le Meur; Lucy Goldsmith; Julia A Critchley; Maria Angelica Pinilla; Gloria Isabel Jaramillo; Domingos Teixeira; Lara Ferrero Goméz; Jackeline Lobato; Carolina Araújo; Joseph Cuthbertson; Catherine M Bennett; Antonis Polemitis; Andreas Charalambous; Christiana A Demetriou; C-MOR consortium

doi:10.1186/s12889-021-12377-1

Premature mortality attributable to COVID-19: potential years of life lost in 17 countries around the world, January-August 2020

BMC Public Health. 2022 Jan 9;22(1):54. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-12377-1.

Authors

Maider Pagola Ugarte^#¹, Souzana Achilleos^#², Annalisa Quattrocchi³, John Gabel¹, Ourania Kolokotroni³, Constantina Constantinou⁴, Nicoletta Nicolaou⁴, Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Llanes⁵, Qian Huang⁶, Olesia Verstiuk⁷, Nataliia Pidmurniak⁷, Jennifer Wenjing Tao⁸, Bo Burström⁹, Petra Klepac¹⁰, Ivan Erzen¹¹, Mario Chong¹², Manuel Barron¹³, Terje P Hagen¹⁴, Zhanna Kalmatayeva¹⁵, Kairat Davletov¹⁶, Inbar Zucker¹⁷, Zalman Kaufman¹⁷, Maia Kereselidze¹⁸, Levan Kandelaki¹⁸, Nolwenn Le Meur¹⁹, Lucy Goldsmith²⁰, Julia A Critchley²¹, Maria Angelica Pinilla²², Gloria Isabel Jaramillo²², Domingos Teixeira²³, Lara Ferrero Goméz²⁴, Jackeline Lobato²⁵, Carolina Araújo²⁶, Joseph Cuthbertson²⁷, Catherine M Bennett²⁸, Antonis Polemitis²⁹, Andreas Charalambous¹, Christiana A Demetriou³; C-MOR consortium

Affiliations

¹ University of Nicosia Medical School, Nicosia, Cyprus.
² Department of Primary Care and Population Health, University of Nicosia Medical School, Nicosia, Cyprus. [email protected].
³ Department of Primary Care and Population Health, University of Nicosia Medical School, Nicosia, Cyprus.
⁴ Department of Basic and Clinical Sciences, University of Nicosia Medical School, Nicosia, Cyprus.
⁵ European Commission Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy.
⁶ South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA.
⁷ Faculty of Medicine 2, Bogomolets National Medical University, Kyiv, Ukraine.
⁸ Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁹ Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁰ Department Communicable Diseases, National Institute of Public Health, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
¹¹ Public Health School, National Institute of Public Health, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
¹² Facultad de Ingenieria, Universidad del Pacifico, Lima, Peru.
¹³ Departamento de Economia, Universidad del Pacifico, Lima, Peru.
¹⁴ Department of Health Management and Economics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
¹⁵ Faculty of Medicine, Al Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
¹⁶ Health Research Institute, Al Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
¹⁷ Israel Center for Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Ramat Gan, Israel.
¹⁸ National Center for Disease Control and Public Health, Tbilisi, Georgia.
¹⁹ University of Rennes, EHESP, REPERES - EA 7449, F-35000, Rennes, France.
²⁰ Population Health Research Institute and Institute for Infection and Immunity, St George's, University of London, London, UK.
²¹ Population Health Research Institute, St George's, University of London, London, UK.
²² Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, Villavicencio, Colombia.
²³ Ministry of Health and Social Security, Praia, Cape Verde.
²⁴ Department of Nature, Life and Environment Sciences, Jean Piaget University of Cape Verde, Praia, Cape Verde.
²⁵ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Collective Health (ISC), Fluminense Federal University, Niterói, Brazil.
²⁶ Graduate Public Health Program, Institute of Studies in Collective Health (IESC), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
²⁷ Monash University Disaster Resilience Initiative, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
²⁸ Institute for Health Transformation, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia.
²⁹ University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Understanding the impact of the burden of COVID-19 is key to successfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of a larger investigation on COVID-19 mortality impact, this study aims to estimate the Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) in 17 countries and territories across the world (Australia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cyprus, France, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Peru, Norway, England & Wales, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States [USA]).

Methods: Age- and sex-specific COVID-19 death numbers from primary national sources were collected by an international research consortium. The study period was established based on the availability of data from the inception of the pandemic to the end of August 2020. The PYLL for each country were computed using 80 years as the maximum life expectancy.

Results: As of August 2020, 442,677 (range: 18-185,083) deaths attributed to COVID-19 were recorded in 17 countries which translated to 4,210,654 (range: 112-1,554,225) PYLL. The average PYLL per death was 8.7 years, with substantial variation ranging from 2.7 years in Australia to 19.3 PYLL in Ukraine. North and South American countries as well as England & Wales, Scotland and Sweden experienced the highest PYLL per 100,000 population; whereas Australia, Slovenia and Georgia experienced the lowest. Overall, males experienced higher PYLL rate and higher PYLL per death than females. In most countries, most of the PYLL were observed for people aged over 60 or 65 years, irrespective of sex. Yet, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Israel, Peru, Scotland, Ukraine, and the USA concentrated most PYLL in younger age groups.

Conclusions: Our results highlight the role of PYLL as a tool to understand the impact of COVID-19 on demographic groups within and across countries, guiding preventive measures to protect these groups under the ongoing pandemic. Continuous monitoring of PYLL is therefore needed to better understand the burden of COVID-19 in terms of premature mortality.

Keywords: COVID-19; Disease burden; PYLL; Pandemic; Potential years of life lost; SARS-CoV-2.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Aged
Brazil
COVID-19*
Female
Humans
Life Expectancy
Male
Mortality
Mortality, Premature
Pandemics
SARS-CoV-2
United States