Excess mortality in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2022.

Background: The Nordic countries represent a unique case study for the COVID-19 pandemic due to socioeconomic and cultural similarities, high-quality comparable administrative register data and notable differences in mitigation policies during the pandemic. We aimed to compare weekly excess mortality in the Nordic countries across the three full pandemic years 2020-2022.

Methods: Using data on weekly all-cause mortality from official administrative registers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, we employed time series regression models to assess mortality developments within each pandemic year, with the period 2010-2019 used as reference period.

Production losses from morbidity and mortality by disease, age and sex in Norway.

Aim: The inclusion of production losses in health care priority setting is extensively debated. However, few studies allow for a comparison of these losses across relevant clinical and demographic categories. Our objective was to provide comprehensive estimates of Norwegian production losses from morbidity and mortality by age, sex and disease category.

Disease-specific health spending by age, sex, and type of care in Norway: a national health registry study.

Background: Norway is a high-income nation with universal tax-financed health care and among the highest per person health spending in the world. This study estimates Norwegian health expenditures by health condition, age, and sex, and compares it with disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs).

Methods: Government budgets, reimbursement databases, patient registries, and prescription databases were combined to estimate spending for 144 health conditions, 38 age and sex groups, and eight types of care (GPs; physiotherapists & chiropractors; specialized outpatient; day patient; inpatient; prescription drugs; home-based care; and nursing homes) totaling 174,157,766 encounters.

Associations between serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and cause-specific mortality in a general population of 345 000 men and women aged 20-79 years.

Background: Benefits of elevated high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels are challenged by reports demonstrating U-shaped relations between HDL-C levels and all-cause mortality; the association with cause-specific mortality is less studied.

Methods: A total of 344 556 individuals (20-79 years, 52 % women) recruited from population-based health screening during 1985-2003 were followed until the end of 2018 for all-cause and cause-specific mortality by serum HDL-C level at inclusion of <30, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89, 90-99 and >99 mg/dl (< 0.78, 0.

Heart failure describing the underlying cause of death: a misconception, lack of information on the true underlying causes, or both?

Aim: The underlying cause of death represents the most important information on death certificates. Often, conditions that cannot represent a true underlying cause of death are listed as such. This phenomenon affects the quality of vital statistics and results of studies using cause-specific mortality as endpoints.

The Burden of Proof studies: assessing the evidence of risk.

Exposure to risks throughout life results in a wide variety of outcomes. Objectively judging the relative impact of these risks on personal and population health is fundamental to individual survival and societal prosperity. Existing mechanisms to quantify and rank the magnitude of these myriad effects and the uncertainty in their estimation are largely subjective, leaving room for interpretation that can fuel academic controversy and add to confusion when communicating risk.

Garbage codes in the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry 1996-2019.

Background: Reliable statistics on the underlying cause of death are essential for monitoring the health in a population. When there is insufficient information to identify the true underlying cause of death, the death will be classified using less informative codes, garbage codes. If many deaths are assigned a garbage code, the information value of the cause-of-death statistics is reduced.

Changes in life expectancy and disease burden in Norway, 1990-2019: an analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019.

Background: Geographical differences in health outcomes are reported in many countries. Norway has led an active policy aiming for regional balance since the 1970s. Using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2019, we examined regional differences in development and current state of health across Norwegian counties.

Parental income gradients in adult health: a national cohort study.

Background: Disparities in health by adult income are well documented, but we know less about the childhood origins of health inequalities, and it remains unclear how the shape of the gradient varies across health conditions. This study examined the association between parental income in childhood and several measures of morbidity in adulthood.

Methods: We used administrative data on seven complete Norwegian birth cohorts born in 1967-1973 (N = 429,886) to estimate the association between parental income from birth to age 18, obtained from tax records available from 1967, linked with administrative registries on health.

Parental income and mental disorders in children and adolescents: prospective register-based study.

Background: Children with low-income parents have a higher risk of mental disorders, although it is unclear whether other parental characteristics or genetic confounding explain these associations and whether it is true for all mental disorders.

Methods: In this registry-based study of all children in Norway (n = 1 354 393) aged 5-17 years from 2008 to 2016, we examined whether parental income was associated with childhood diagnoses of mental disorders identified through national registries from primary healthcare, hospitalizations and specialist outpatient services.

Results: There were substantial differences in mental disorders by parental income, except for eating disorders in girls.

Alcohol-attributed disease burden in four Nordic countries between 2000 and 2017: Are the gender gaps narrowing? A comparison using the Global Burden of Disease, Injury and Risk Factor 2017 study.

Introduction And Aims: The gender difference in alcohol use seems to have narrowed in the Nordic countries, but it is not clear to what extent this may have affected differences in levels of harm. We compared gender differences in all-cause and cause-specific alcohol-attributed disease burden, as measured by disability-adjusted life-years (DALY), in four Nordic countries in 2000-2017, to find out if gender gaps in DALYs had narrowed.

Design And Methods: Alcohol-attributed disease burden by DALYs per 100 000 population with 95% uncertainty intervals were extracted from the Global Burden of Disease database.

Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study.

Background: Understanding potential patterns in future population levels is crucial for anticipating and planning for changing age structures, resource and health-care needs, and environmental and economic landscapes. Future fertility patterns are a key input to estimation of future population size, but they are surrounded by substantial uncertainty and diverging methodologies of estimation and forecasting, leading to important differences in global population projections. Changing population size and age structure might have profound economic, social, and geopolitical impacts in many countries.

Mortality following first-time hospitalization with acute myocardial infarction in Norway, 2001-2014: Time trends, underlying causes and place of death.

Background: Trends on cause-specific mortality following acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are poorly described and no studies have analyzed where do AMI patients die. We analyzed trends in 28-day and one-year mortality following an incident AMI with focus on changes over time in the underlying cause and place of death.

Methods: We identified in the 'Cardiovascular Disease in Norway' Project all patients 25+ years, hospitalized with an incident AMI in Norway, 2001-2014.

The Norwegian Patient Registry and the Norwegian Registry for Primary Health Care: Research potential of two nationwide health-care registries.

In Norway, the Directorate of Health is responsible for two nationwide registries - the Norwegian Patient Registry (NPR) and the Norwegian Registry for Primary Health Care (NRPHC) - which together cover all governmental-funded health care. The NPR (specialist health care) was established in 2008, while the NRPHC (primary health care) was established in 2017. Data from the NPR are extensively used in a large variety of studies.

Association of Household Income With Life Expectancy and Cause-Specific Mortality in Norway, 2005-2015.

Importance: Examining causes of death and making comparisons across countries may increase understanding of the income-related differences in life expectancy.

Objectives: To describe income-related differences in life expectancy and causes of death in Norway and to compare those differences with US estimates.

Design And Setting: A registry-based study including all Norwegian residents aged at least 40 years from 2005 to 2015.

Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors in Child and Adolescent Health, 1990 to 2017: Findings From the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2017 Study.

Importance: Understanding causes and correlates of health loss among children and adolescents can identify areas of success, stagnation, and emerging threats and thereby facilitate effective improvement strategies.

Objective: To estimate mortality and morbidity in children and adolescents from 1990 to 2017 by age and sex in 195 countries and territories.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This study examined levels, trends, and spatiotemporal patterns of cause-specific mortality and nonfatal health outcomes using standardized approaches to data processing and statistical analysis.

Injury death certificates without specification of the circumstances leading to the fatal injury - the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry 2005-2014.

Background: For injury deaths, the underlying cause of death is defined as the circumstances leading to the injury. When this information is missing, the ICD-10 code X59 (Exposure to unspecified factor) is used. Lack of knowledge of factors causing injuries reduces the value of the cause of death statistics.

Changes in health in the countries of the UK and 150 English Local Authority areas 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.

Background: Previous studies have reported national and regional Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimates for the UK. Because of substantial variation in health within the UK, action to improve it requires comparable estimates of disease burden and risks at country and local levels. The slowdown in the rate of improvement in life expectancy requires further investigation.

Forecasting life expectancy, years of life lost, and all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 250 causes of death: reference and alternative scenarios for 2016-40 for 195 countries and territories.

Background: Understanding potential trajectories in health and drivers of health is crucial to guiding long-term investments and policy implementation. Past work on forecasting has provided an incomplete landscape of future health scenarios, highlighting a need for a more robust modelling platform from which policy options and potential health trajectories can be assessed. This study provides a novel approach to modelling life expectancy, all-cause mortality and cause of death forecasts -and alternative future scenarios-for 250 causes of death from 2016 to 2040 in 195 countries and territories.

Disease burden in Norway in 2016.

Bakgrunn: For å kunne møte helseutfordringer i befolkningen trenger vi oversikt over befolkningens helsetilstand. I Norge har vi tradisjonelt hatt god oversikt over dødsårsaker, men vi vet mindre om byrden fra tilstander som medfører sykelighet, såkalt ikke-dødelig helsetap. Vårt mål var å beskrive den totale sykdomsbyrden i Norge i 2016, utviklingen de siste ti årene samt kjønnsforskjeller i sykdomsbyrde.

Slaying little dragons: the impact of the Guinea Worm Eradication Program on dracunculiasis disability averted from 1990 to 2016.

The objective of this study was to document the worldwide decline of dracunculiasis (Guinea worm disease, GWD) burden, expressed as disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), from 1990 to 2016, as estimated in the Global Burden of Disease study 2016 (GBD 2016). While the annual number of cases of GWD have been consistently reported by WHO since the 1990s, the burden of disability due to GWD has not previously been quantified in GBD. The incidence of GWD was modeled for each endemic country using annual national case reports.

Global, Regional, and National Cancer Incidence, Mortality, Years of Life Lost, Years Lived With Disability, and Disability-Adjusted Life-Years for 29 Cancer Groups, 1990 to 2016: A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study.

Importance: The increasing burden due to cancer and other noncommunicable diseases poses a threat to human development, which has resulted in global political commitments reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Action Plan on Non-Communicable Diseases. To determine if these commitments have resulted in improved cancer control, quantitative assessments of the cancer burden are required.

Objective: To assess the burden for 29 cancer groups over time to provide a framework for policy discussion, resource allocation, and research focus.

Trends in incident acute myocardial infarction in Norway: An updated analysis to 2014 using national data from the CVDNOR project.

Background We updated the information on trends of incident acute myocardial infarction in Norway, focusing on whether the observed trends during 2001-2009 continued throughout 2014. Methods All incident (first) acute myocardial infarctions in Norwegian residents age 25 years and older were identified in the Cardiovascular Disease in Norway 1994-2014 project. We analysed overall and age group-specific (25-64 years, 65-84 years and 85 + years) trends by gender using Poisson regression analyses and report the average annual changes in rates with their 95% confidence intervals.