mortality rate
(noun)
the number of deaths per given unit of population over a given period of time
Examples of mortality rate in the following topics:
-
Sepsis and Septic Shock
- The mortality rate from septic shock is approximately 25–50%.
- The mortality rate from sepsis is approximately 40% in adults, and 25% in children, and is significantly greater when left untreated for more than seven days.
-
Amoebic Meningoencephalitis
- The disease is both exceptionally rare and highly lethal: there have been fewer than 200 confirmed cases in recorded medical history as of 2004, and 300 cases as of 2008, with an in-hospital case fatality rate of ~97% (3% patient survival rate).
- Its high mortality rate is largely blamed on the unusually non-suggestive symptomology in its early stages, compounded by the necessity of microbial culture of the cerebrospinal fluid to effect a positive diagnosis.
-
Defective Viruses
- In combination with hepatitis B virus, hepatitis D has the highest mortality rate of all the hepatitis infections of 20%.
-
Anthrax
- Inhalation anthrax has a 97% mortality rate.
-
The Vocabulary Epidemiology
- Although sometimes loosely expressed simply as the number of new cases during a time period, it is better expressed as the incidence rate which is the number of new cases per population in a given time period.
- Incidence should not be confused with prevalence, which is a measure of the total number of cases of disease in a population rather than the rate of occurrence of new cases.
- In epidemiology, the term morbidity rate can refer to either the incidence rate, or the prevalence of a disease, or medical condition.
- This measure of sickness is contrasted with the mortality rate of a condition, which is the proportion of people dying during a given time interval.
- Compare and contrast the following concepts: epidemic, endemic, pandemic; incidence vs prevalence; morbidity vs mortality; incubation, latency, acute, decline and convalescent periods
-
Current Epidemics
- The declaration of an epidemic usually requires a good understanding of a baseline rate of incidence; epidemics for certain diseases, such as influenza, are defined as reaching some defined increase in incidence above this baseline.
- However, the WHO's declaration of a pandemic level 6 was an indication of spread, not severity; the strain actually having a lower mortality rate than common flu outbreaks.
-
The Cardiovascular System
- The immune response to the bacteria can cause sepsis and septic shock, which has a relatively high mortality rate.
-
Planktonic Food Webs
- Changes in the vertical stratification of the water column, the rate of temperature-dependent biological reactions, and the atmospheric supply of nutrients are expected to have important impacts on future phytoplankton productivity.
- Additionally, changes in the mortality of phytoplankton due to rates of zooplankton grazing may be significant.
-
Planktonic Communities
- Changes in the vertical stratification of the water column, the rate of temperature-dependent biological reactions, and the atmospheric supply of nutrients are expected to have important impacts on future phytoplankton productivity.
- Additionally, changes in the mortality of phytoplankton due to rates of zooplankton grazing may be significant.
-
Cost and Prevention of Resistance
- Patients who are infected with bacterial strains resistant to more than one type or class of drugs (multidrug-resistant organisms, MDRO) often have an increased risk of prolonged illness, extended hospital stay, and mortality.