Show are the same but the ranks are quite different Specifically the top two causes of death are reversed and the fifth through the eight are different For females and the three older age groups the top ten leading cause of death are essentially the same for LDS and non-LDS women and the relative ranks of these causes are sometimes different For example in the 80 age group cause 5-9 have different relative ranks as due causes 36 in the 60 to 79 year age group and causes 59 have different relative ranks as do causes 3-6 in the 60-79 year group and causes 59 in the 40-59 year age group In the 20-39 year age group LDS and non-LDS women have the same top five leading causes of death but with different relative ranks Also there is only partial overlap in causes and rank between the two groups for the five causes of death Finally in the 1-19 year age group the ten leading causes of death are quite similar but the relative ranks of causes 2-5 are different Mortality rates per 100 000 corresponding to the five leading causes of death for each age gender and religious group are presented in Table Also presented in Tableare p-values associated with tests of equality of these rates between LDS and non-LDS groups for each cause within each age and gender group These mortality rates are useful for making direct comparisons between the LDS and nonLDS groups since they account for population differences in both groups Rate ratios nonLDS LDS are also presented to faciltate comparisons The LDS groups has significantly lower causespecific mortality rates for the majority of the causes listed in Talefor both genders and across all age groups Notable exceptions are diabetes for which there are no real differences in rates in males nor females for any age group and heart disease in the 80 age group for which LDS males have significantly higher rate than non-LDS males Discussion This paper providesdescription of leading causes of death in Utah according to religious preference gender and age Our approach is clearly population based and our conclusions are made assuming group characteristics therefore even though there are individuals within the groups who do not have the attributed group characteristics our conclusions are valid if the group characterization is valid For males in all age groups LDS and non-LDS experience the same leading causes of death but differences exist in the rank ordering of theses causes especially in the 1-19 and 20-39 age groups For example suicide and non-tobacco neoplasm account forhigher percentage of non-LDS deaths compared to LDS For men in three older age groups 40-59 60-79 80 there are non differences in causes or ranks of the top five causes of death Similarly there are relatively few differences in the ten leading causes between LDS and non-LDS females In general there are more differences in the ranks of leading causes of death between LDS and non-LDS in females than males and these differences seem to be more marked in the three older age groups General lifestyle differences between LDS and non-LDS are well established West Lyon and Gardner 1980 Since the most obvious lifestyle differences between LDS and non-LDS groups are tobacco use and alcohol consumption we would expect to see differences in tobacco and alcohol related diseases Higher mortality rates observed in non-LDS males and females are largely attributed to diseases influenced by tobacco For example rate ratios for tobacco range from6 to 24 These results are consistent with those from other studies Greenlee et al 2000 Gardner and Lyon 1977 Lyon Gardner and Gress 1994 Lyon Gardner and West 1988 and 1980 Enstrom 1975 Lyon et al 1976 One notable exception to this trend is in males aged 80 and older where nonLDS men have significantly lower rates of heart disease than LDS men This may be partly due to more common use of alcohol in non-LDS The relationship between low to moderate reduced with consumption alcohol cardiovascular mortality is well established and shown to also exist in older populations Scherr et al 1992 This difference may also be explained in part by the fact that non-LDS men are dying of heart disease at significantly higher rates in the younger age groups Therefore those in the non-LDS group who are at greatest risk for heart disease are in the oldest age 42 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |