Emerging Disease Death Profile of Goa: What Changed with Time?

This article attempts to understand the emerging disease death profile of the state of Goa, by using the deaths data from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), in the Annual Reports of Registrar of Births and Deaths of the Government of Goa. It takes a closer look at the different types of disease deaths for five major mortality cause groups, namely, infectious diseases, neoplasms (cancers), circulatory diseases, digestive diseases and respiratory diseases, which together account for majority of disease deaths for Goa. It is observed that in the recent times, digestive (liver) deaths, circulatory (ischaemic heart) deaths and newer types of cancer deaths are on the rise. Within the infectious disease death profile, it appears that while certain types of disease deaths are wiped out, mortality for some conventional diseases such as tuberculosis still persists, and new disease pathogens such as HIV (viral) and malaria (protozoal) have made their presence felt. Age-wise and gender-wise break-ups reveal that disease deaths vary by gender and for different age groups. All this has crucial policy implications; we suggest such relevant information needs to be taken into account while designing and implementing disease control programmes and priorities of the state.
Source: Journal of Health Management - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Articles Source Type: research