Dataset Information

Deaths and major biographical events: a study of all cancer deaths in Germany from 1995 to 2009.

ABSTRACT: To determine if people dying from cancer are able to prolong their own life in order to experience a certain biographical event, or whether the appearance of such an occasion leads to increased deaths before the event.We compared numbers of cancer deaths during a period of 1 week before and after biographically important occasions, which were birthday, Christmas and Easter. As a psychogenic postponement or hastening of death is most likely in chronic diseases (as opposed to accidents or cardiovascular events), we included cancer deaths only. We estimated relative risks (RRs) with their corresponding Bonferroni corrected CIs to assess effects of biographical events. All registered cancer deaths in Germany from 1995 to 2009 were included (3 257 520 individual deaths). Numbers of deaths were corrected for seasonality.Considering all cases, there were noticeably more deaths than expected in the week preceding Christmas, leading to an RR of dying after the event of 0.987 (CI 0.978 to 0.997). Estimates indicating a hastening of death were consistent over several subgroups. Other occasions showed inconsistent results, especially there was no convincing postponement effect in our data.While there is no evidence of different death numbers before and after Easter and birthdays, the appearance of Christmas seems to increase deaths.

SUBMITTER: Medenwald D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3987729 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Deaths and major biographical events: a study of all cancer deaths in Germany from 1995 to 2009.

Medenwald Daniel D Kuss Oliver O

BMJ open 20140402 4

<h4>Objective</h4>To determine if people dying from cancer are able to prolong their own life in order to experience a certain biographical event, or whether the appearance of such an occasion leads to increased deaths before the event.<h4>Methods</h4>We compared numbers of cancer deaths during a period of 1 week before and after biographically important occasions, which were birthday, Christmas and Easter. As a psychogenic postponement or hastening of death is most likely in chronic diseases (a ...[more]

PMID: 24694623

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Project description:BackgroundPoisson regression modelling has been widely used to estimate the disease burden attributable to influenza, though not without concerns that some of the excess burden could be due to other causes. This study aims to provide annual estimates of the mortality and hospitalization burden attributable to both seasonal influenza and the 2009 A/H1N1 pandemic influenza for Canada, and to discuss issues related to the reliability of these estimates.MethodsWeekly time-series for all-cause mortality and regression models were used to estimate the number of deaths in Canada attributable to influenza from September 1992 to December 2009. To assess their robustness, the annual estimates derived from different parameterizations of the regression model for all-cause mortality were compared. In addition, the association between the annual estimates for mortality and hospitalization by age group, underlying cause of death or primary reason for admission and discharge status is discussed.ResultsThe crude influenza-attributed mortality rate based on all-cause mortality and averaged over 17 influenza seasons prior to the 2009 A/H1N1 pandemic was 11.3 (95%CI, 10.5 - 12.1) deaths per 100 000 population per year, or an average of 3,500 (95%CI, 3,200 - 3,700) deaths per year attributable to seasonal influenza. The estimated annual rates ranged from undetectable at the ecological level to more than 6000 deaths per year over the three A/Sydney seasons. In comparison, we attributed an estimated 740 deaths (95%CI, 350-1500) to A(H1N1)pdm09. Annual estimates from different model parameterizations were strongly correlated, as were estimates for mortality and morbidity; the higher A(H1N1)pdm09 burden in younger age groups was the most notable exception.InterpretationWith the exception of some of the Serfling models, differences in the ecological estimates of the disease burden attributable to influenza were small in comparison to the variation in disease burden from one season to another.

Dataset Information

Deaths and major biographical events: a study of all cancer deaths in Germany from 1995 to 2009.

Publications

Deaths and major biographical events: a study of all cancer deaths in Germany from 1995 to 2009.

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