AUTHOR=Song Shoufang , Guo Chen , Wu Ruiyun , Zhao Hong , Li Qiang , Dou Jia-hao , Guo Fan-shun , Wei Jin 

TITLE=Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cardiovascular mortality and contrast analysis within subgroups

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2024.1279890

DOI=10.3389/fcvm.2024.1279890

ISSN=2297-055X

ABSTRACT=Background: An increase of deaths has been perceived during the pandemic, which cannot be explained only by covid-19. The actual number of deaths far exceeds the recorded data on deaths directly related to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Data from early and short-lived pandemic studies show dramatic shift in cardiovascular mortality. Grounded in the post-pandemic era, macroscopic big data on cardiovascular mortality during the pandemic need to be further reviewed and studied, which is crucial for cardiovascular disease prevention and control.We retrieved and collected data on cardiovascular disease-related deaths from the National Vital Statistic System from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER) platform based on the ICD-10 codes. We used Joinpoint to characterize overall cardiovascular disease mortality trends from 2010-2021 and built a time series model to predict mortality for 2020-2021 based on mortality data from 2010-2019 in order to affirm the existence of the excess deaths by evaluating observed vs. predicted mortality for 2020-2021. We also conducted subgroup analyses by gender, age and race.Results: All-cause and CVDs(cardiovascular diseases)-related mortality from cardiovascular disease increased significantly during the pandemic and accounted for a sizable proportion. As for subgroup analysis,the 2019-2021 annual percentage change (APC) for age-standardized mortality rates (ASMRs, per 100,000 persons) showed significant rise in all age groups with the largest change (19.8%) for the 25-44 years group compared to 14.5% and 11.6% for the other two groups respectively. Besides, the most dramatic APC rise during the 2019-2021 period was in American Indians/Alaska people (16.5%, 95%CI 12.0-21.2,p<0.001) followed by non-Hispanic Black people(11.8%, 95% CI 9.0-14.6, p <0.001), and non-Hispanic Asian people(11.1%, 95% CI 6.6-15.8, p <0.05), with the shortest rise during the same period in non-Hispanic White people(10.4%, 95% CI 7.1-13.8, p <0.001).