Gender differences in premature mortality for cardiovascular disease in India, 2017-18

Background: Understanding the impact of cardiovascular diseases on mortality requires not only counting the dead, but also determining how early the deaths occur. The premature mortality due to cardiovascular diseases is increasing in India but a systematic understanding of its gender wise distribution across the states is not readily available. Therefore, the present study tries to provide a comprehensive estimates of gender differences in the years of life lost due to CVD across the major states of India during 2017-18. Methods: Multiple data sources including the Census of India (2001, 2011), SRS (2018), and MCCD reports (2018) were used to estimate YLL. To understand the variation in YLL due to CVD at the state level, eight sets of covariates were chosen: share of elderly population, percentage of urban population, literacy rate, health expenditure, social sector expenditure, labour force participation, and co-existence of other NCDs such as diabetes, obesity, and so on. Results: The YLL due to CVD did not change notably across the age group but it differ significantly by gender. As people age, the years of life lost decreased but the difference was minimal… YLL due to CVD varied remarkably across the states of India. Women lost more years of life in all age groups owing to CVD in most of the states except Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Irrespective of sex, all the covariates were positively correlated with YLL due to CVD except state health expenditure. Among all the covariates, the share of elderly population of a state comes out as the strongest predictor variable for YLL for CVDs. Conclusion: Consideration of gender differences is important for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of CVD. The state-specific findings in this study can serve as a useful reference for informing policies and programs to plan more effectively the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases in each state of India. Key Words: Years of life lost (YLL), CVD, Gender differences, India