underwriting

Unemployment and Mortality

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Study Sees Link Between Unemployment, Mortality Rates | workforce.com

Unemployment and reduced spending on health care have a direct effect on the country’s mortality rate, according to a new study. Unemployed workers lose jobs, lose health insurance, get stressed and adopt unhealthy behaviors.<!—->

This short article teases and provides little details of the study findings.  If I can find a link to, or the actual study I will post that.  Obviously, unemployment increases mortality but without a look at the study we don’t know how much of an increase we’re talking about.

AF + DM = 61% Greater Risk of All-Cause Mortality

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Medical News: Atrial Fibrillation Predicts Poor Outcome in Diabetes – in Cardiovascular, Diabetes from MedPage Today

Among the findings:

  • Over 4.3 years of follow-up, 879 patients died and 53% of those deaths were from cardiovascular causes
  • 15% of the deaths occurred in patients with atrial fibrillation
  • Atrial fibrillation was associated with a 77% risk of cardiovascular death (P<0.0001) and a 68% increase in risk of death from heart failure (P=0.0002) over the course of the study
  • Atrial fibrillation was associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke (P=0.0006)
  • 26% of patients with atrial fibrillation at baseline were on anticoagulant therapy
  • Among patients taking oral anticoagulant therapy at baseline, the “adjusted HRs associated with [atrial fibrillation] were 2.16 (95% CI 1.15 to 4.07; P=0.02) and 2.32 (95% CI 1.06 to 5.12, P=0.04) for all-cause mortality and cardiovascular death, respectively.”