ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. General Pediatrics and Pediatric Emergency Care
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1623238
Global, Regional, and National Burden of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and the Impact of COVID-19: A Trend and Health Inequality Analysis based on the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021
Provisionally accepted
- 1Central Hospital of Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
- 2The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China
- 3Dalian Women and Children's Medical Group, Dalian, China
- 4People's Liberation Army Northern Theater Command General Hospital, Shenyang, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Current sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) epidemiological patterns and COVID-19 impacts remain uncertain. We therefore conducted this global, regional, and national epidemiological study using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2021. Methods: This study analyzed GBD-based population data on SIDS disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Age-standardized DALY rates (ASDR; per 100,000 population) with 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) were calculated for 204 countries and territories, stratified by age, location, and socio-demographic index (SDI). Results: In 2021, the ASDR of SIDS accounted for 44.16 (95% UI: 25.70 to 59.26) per 100,000 population globally, which was a 58.97% decrease from 1990. The low and low-middle SDI quintiles exhibited a disproportionately higher disease burden of SIDS among the five SDI quintiles in 2021. Higher sociodemographic status showed an inverse association with SIDS burden, with high-SDI countries demonstrating a greater reduction compared to low-SDI counterparts from 1990 to 2021 based on age-period-cohort analysis. Although the global burden of SIDS had maintained a sustained downward trend prior to the pandemic, COVID-19 disruptions may have attenuated mitigation progress, with trend analysis suggesting a possible plateau in SIDS burden during this period rather than continued decline. Study findings indicate that although the global incidence of SIDS has shown a steady decline, persistent regional disparities underscore long-standing public health challenges. Conclusion: The burden of SIDS-related DALYs remains substantial, and its post-pandemic evolution trends necessitate dynamic tracking through robust epidemiological surveillance systems. Keywords Sudden infant death syndrome; Global burden of disease study; epidemiology; health inequality analysis; risk factors
Keywords: sudden infant death syndrome, Global Burden of Disease study, Epidemiology, Health inequality analysis, Risk factors
Received: 21 May 2025; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Liu, Zhao, Xiuqi, Tao, Wu, Sun, Dong and Xi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xinkuo Zheng, Central Hospital of Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
Yalin Xi, Central Hospital of Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.