Causes of adult female deaths in Bangladesh: findings from two National Surveys

This decline in mortality rates is attributed to a shift in the pattern of causes of death during the 9-year period between the two surveys. In the 2001 survey, maternal deaths accounted for 20% of all deaths, followed by diseases of the circulatory system (15%), malignancies (14%), and infectious diseases (13%). However, in the 2010 survey, malignancies became the leading cause of death (21%), followed by diseases of the circulatory system (16%), maternal causes (14%), and infectious diseases (8%). The shift in the pattern of causes of death is consistent with the overall change in the disease pattern from communicable to non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh. The proportion of women who died in hospitals increased between the two surveys, but most women still died at home, with 74% of deaths occurring at home in 2001 and 62% in 2010. The study highlights the need for specific interventions to prevent premature deaths among teenage girls, who were found to be at high risk of unnatural deaths, including suicide. The analysis of data from the 2001 and 2010 Bangladesh Maternal Mortality Surveys (BMMS) used verbal autopsy (VA) to determine the causes of death among women aged 15-49 years. The VA method involves an interview with the next of kin or other caregivers who were present at the time of death or knowledgeable about the events leading up to death. The study found that VA can provide reliable information on causes of death, especially in settings where deaths occur outside a hospital. The study used a nationally representative sample of households, with approximately 100,000 and 174,000 households surveyed in 2001 and 2010, respectively. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 17.0 and Microsoft Excel 2007, with household weights used to obtain unbiased estimates at the national level. The study's findings have implications for public health planning and resource allocation in Bangladesh, highlighting the need to address the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases and to develop targeted interventions to prevent premature deaths among vulnerable populations. The results of the study show that the leading causes of death among women aged 15-49 years in Bangladesh changed between 2001 and 2010. In 2001, maternal deaths were the leading cause of death, followed by diseases of the circulatory system, malignancies, and infectious diseases. In 2010, malignancies became the leading cause of death, followed by diseases of the circulatory system, maternal causes, and infectious diseases. The study also found that the proportion of women who died in hospitals increased between the two surveys, but most women still died at home. The study's analysis of mortality rates and proportional mortality showed age-specific patterns of causes of death, place of death, and health-seeking behavior before death. The mortality rate is calculated as the ratio of deaths in the three years preceding the survey to the person-years lived by women aged 15-49 years in the same period, expressed per 100,000 women aged 15-49 years. Proportional mortality (%) was calculated by dividing the number of deaths attributed to a specific cause by the total number of deaths for which a VA was carried out. The difference between the two death rates in 2001 and 2010 was compared by calculating the 95% confidence intervals (CI), and the difference between two proportions was compared by z-test for statistical significance at 80% power and p < 0.05.