A better way to measure mortality trends?
The research published today in the American Journal of Public Health , calculated years of life lost to the top 15 causes of death in the United States between 1995 and 2015 (examining more than 2 million death certificates each year), compared it to the number of deaths and examined reasons for differences. "Focusing on life-years provides perspective on the societal burden of disease and highlights the disparities in disease burden," said Glen Taksler, Ph.D., Cleveland Clinic researcher and lead author of the study. "Reordering mortality by life-years lost paints a more complete picture of changing mortality and its distribution across various populations." As an example, researchers concluded that, although heart disease is the leading cause-of-death overall, other conditions, such as cancer, caused more life-years lost. In 2015, heart disease caused 6 percent more deaths than cancer -- 635,310 compared to 596,730 -- but cancer caused 23 percent more l...