Data Talks: Obesity-Related Influences on US Mortality Rates

Abstract

Background: In the US, obesity is an epidemiologic challenge and the population fails to comprehend this complex public health issue. To evaluate underlying obesity-impact patterns on mortality rates, we data-mined the 1999-2016 Center for Disease Control WONDER database’s vital records. Methods: Adopting SAS programming, we scrutinized the mortality and population counts. Using ICD-10 diagnosis codes connected to overweight and obesity, we obtained the obesity-related crude and age-adjusted causes of death. To understand divergent and prevalence trends we compared and contrasted the tabulated obesity-influenced mortality rates with demographic information, gender, and age-related data. Key Results: From 1999 to 2016, the obesity-related age-adjusted mortality rates increased by 142%. The ICD-10 overweight and obesity-related death-certificate coding showed clear evidence that obesity factored in the male age-adjusted mortality rate increment to 173% and the corresponding female rate to 117%. It also disproportionately affected the nation-wide minority population death rates. Furthermore, excess weight distributions are coded as contributing features in the crude death rates for all decennial age-groups. Conclusions: The 1999-2016 data from ICD-10 death certificate coding for obesity-related conditions indicate that it is affecting all segments of the US population.